A Hole in the World
by anneliese-michel
Summary: Dean Winchester never wanted to go home again. Going back to Lawrence meant people who knew what he was, who didn't buy into the lie. But with a tragic accident, he's back and dealing with the death of his father, the social stigma and objectification of being an out Omega, and the lingering aftermath of a long-ago crime.
1. Chapter 1

_There's a hole in the world tonight. _  
_There's a Cloud of fear and sorrow. There's a hole in the world tonight. _  
_Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow. _

_They say that anger is just love disappointed. _  
_They say that love is just a state of mind, _  
_But all this fighting over who will be anointed. _  
_Oh how can people be so blind?_

_- The Eagles, "Hole in the World"_

No one quite knows what ended the world. Well, if people knew—scholars, politicians—they weren't telling the rest of humanity. Not that there was much of humanity left to tell.

Evolution, they called it, when the population bottlenecked and humans became an endangered species for a time. Everything was threatened, and more than one species fell off the map entirely. And for a long while, humanity teetered there as well. Maybe it was natural evolution. Maybe it was man-made, with scientists forcing the issue of humanity's survival. Maybe the pervasive gray ash that clung in the air did something, changed something. Maybe a lot of someones had somehow gotten frisky outside the species, with potential human mates dwindling. And hell, maybe the religious fringe were right and the apocalypse had happened, and they were cursed. By now, no one knows. No one cares. The world is as it is.

Humanity changed to make breeding imperative, their bodies transforming over time and through increasingly pitiful generations to something more. . . efficient.

Why should the human body produce two milliliters of ejaculate and call it quits, when it had the potential to pump through multiple orgasms, knotting a pair together for hours and saturating a womb?

Why release only one egg per month, or two, when a fertile woman is born with 400,000, of which only .1 percent will ever be released, and beyond that only one or two will be fertilized?

Why should humans be one of the few species so sense-blinded that they didn't sense when a potential mate would be most fertile? Why should a species that so needed to expand to survive escape the driving biological imperative to produce?

Perhaps most curious of all, however, was the element of adjustment to the concept of gender within the species.

xXx

Home sweet home, Lawrence Kansas, and the bar where everyone knows your name.

Dean Winchester is pretty sure there are people in this blighted, godforsaken country that romanticize that sort of crap, but Dean will never be among them. There are good reasons he left Lawrence, reasons that were becoming readily apparent the longer he was there, but he would be damned if he was going to go into hiding now that he was back.

"C'mon, breeder. . . you want to ride my knot, baby? Split you open on my cock, stuff you so full you're sore for. . ."

"About five fucking minutes, probably. If that." Raising two fingers to signal another shot he probably didn't need, Dean grits his teeth over the rest of his intended tirade at the warning look Ellen shoots him from the other side of the Roadhouse, where she's rounding up orders for a group around the poker tables. He's feeling loose and reckless at this point in the night, more than a bit agitated about being home, and if it starts a bar fight so be it. Ellen will forgive him for it eventually as long as he doesn't pull a knife or break anything expensive. That's what family's for.

"What the fuck did you just say to me, bitch?" Fetid breath washes over Dean's cheek, a body crowding up against his back, and Dean's gone. Doesn't matter how patient he is, every man's got his breaking point, and there are few things that set Dean off like being called someone's bitch. The asshole's next words only dig him in deeper. "That's not how I remember it, slut. . ."

The bar stool scrapes the concrete floor loudly before off balancing, Dean unfolding himself from it to loom over the redneck beside him, his fingers biting into the paunchy neck his hand is suddenly wrapped around before the stool even has the chance to finish its journey to the floor.

"You kiss your mama with that mouth, Nate?" Jo Harvelle is a vision, and the moment she rebelliously plunks another drink down in front of Dean against her mother's advice, planting her fists on her hips, Dean knows this fight's over. Not because he won't get into a brawl with a girl around, but because he's known Jo since she was a toddler tripping him up in this bar, and he knows this is as much a hot button for her as it is for him. Plus there's the embarrassing possibility that she'd win. The girl cheats, and goes straight for the testicles. His own damn fault. He taught her how to defend herself when she was eleven, and didn't account for how ruthless she'd become by twenty-two.

Dean knew how to defend himself because of assholes like the man in his grip. The fifteen years between hadn't been kind to him, or to the band of cronies he'd apparently kept since they were all kids, but Dean recognizes him now, this close and with a name to associate to. Goddamn but he hates coming back to Lawrence.

"Let him breathe, Dean, I want to hear this. Because if this asshole thinks the ability to take the pain of squirting a kid the size of a watermelon out makes over half the population of the planet a 'bitch,' I want to hear it. And then I want to hear him call his Mama and tell her that, because I remember Missus Hardey from fifth grade and she scared the shit out of all of us."

Nate Hardey's face is turning a satisfying shade of purple, eyes bulging, and Jo's hand touches Dean's arm above the wrist to remind him to drop the asshole back to his feet. Hooking his foot into the slats of his stool, he pops it back upright deliberately without bending, and settles down into his seat, resolutely picking his drink back up. It's a smooth burn going down, and bless that girl she gave him the good stuff.

Hardey's coughing and hacking beside him, and he can hear the profanity between each wheeze. He can hear people moving behind him, knows that some of the men at his back are hostile as well. He knows intimately just how far these assholes will take things if left to their own devices.

Because as a just barely post-pubescent teenager, fifteen years earlier, he'd learned how little the world cared about the consent of a fresh 'bitch.' He has these idiots to thank for being able to fight. But he'd learned it after spending two weeks in the hospital, and three months of lingering pains, and then . . . hell, even Dean knows he has issues. His issues have volumes. His volumes could fill libraries.

It didn't take much for Ellen to put two and two together and get four. The quiet threat of violence in her tone means she doesn't even have to reach for the shotgun behind the counter, doesn't have to put it into her words. "You boys better clear out, now. And find some other place to drink from now on."

She waits until Hardey retreats, snarling threats that he can't voice around the gasping rasps, dragged away by his cronies, before she swats Dean upside the back of his head with the flat of her hand. "Boy, what part of that seemed like a smart idea? Or of this." She gestures at the line of shots before him. "You don't come home near often enough for me to want to see you getting this drunk first night, and. . ."

"Not doing this because it's smart, Ellen. Didn't stand up to that jackass because it was smart, either. . . though it felt damned good." Dean takes his drink up from the bar again, and he finishes it, letting the flavor roll on his tongue for a moment before tipping his head in thanks to Jo. "Thanks, kid. That was good."

Jo rolls her eyes, finally unclenching her hands from around the rag she was supposedly wiping the bar down with. "Don't thank me. I'da kept giving you the swill, since you're determined to kill your liver. That was from the professor type over there, picking up your tab." Tipping her chin at the corner of the bar, farthest from the door, she indicates a man who has seemed to fade into the nicotine stained wood-grain behind him. All Dean gets is the impression of rumpled, too-formal clothes, hair that stands up every which way, and eyes that seem creepily fixed on his every move as he turns in his chair to squint across the room at his patron for the night.

Any desire to find out who the stranger buying him drinks is, though, was washed away by the encounter with the fuckheads earlier, the knowledge that everyone in this bar now has a damn clear idea of what he is even if they didn't already know who he is, and the intense need to shower until his skin turns red and their smell is nowhere near him. "Yeah, well, free booze so I'm not complaining. Ellen, I'm gonna go crash, long as you haven't decided you regret offering to let me stay upstairs. . ."

Ellen rolls her eyes, a long suffering look that masks the sympathy and pity he asked her to put away the moment he walked in, but she jerks a thumb at the stairs behind the bar and doesn't press Dean for answers the way she would have if he'd been in Lawrence for any other reason. "Better you stay here than there. We're closer to the hospital anyway, and I wouldn't put it past those assholes to try and catch you leaving here. Don't you mess with my stores, though. . ."

Rising to his feet, Dean braces his hands on the bar and swings himself over it, earning him a swat from Jo for 'leaving an assprint where she'd just washed' and an exasperated sigh from Ellen with a pointed look at the gap he could have walked right through. He catches her around the shoulders, a quick hug that she reciprocates, taking the rare opportunity Dean allows someone to give comfort in return. "Wouldn't dream of it, ma'am."

"Pull the other one, Dean." Jo smirks, shaking her head slightly and going to take care of the professor-guy. Dean can't help but snark back at her, his shoulder to the door that would lead him upstairs. "Why, kiddo, you still think you're gonna grow taller if I keep pulling?"

Whatever Jo mutters in response startles a rich chuckle from the dark haired man in the corner, low and whiskey-soaked and rough, but Dean's through the door and on his way to scrub down and sleep it off.

xXx

Dean is raw and pink and Irish Spring fresh by the time he falls into bed. He still takes a knife with him, tucking it beneath the pillow, and still sleeps on top of the covers rather than let himself be tangled in them if he had to wake up quickly.

If he wakes up four hours later in a cold sweat, dragging himself out of old nightmares, then he's the only one to know.

xXx

Morning comes, and with it comes responsibility. Dean allows himself very little time to watch the ray of sun slipping between the curtains and catch on the bottles stacked in the corner, making the alcohol within glow in luminous amber. The upstairs store room doubles as Ellen's guest room and, at times, Winchester Drunk Tank. From the looks of it, she hasn't used it for that second purpose in a while: Dean's enough of a cynic not to think that means his father cleaned up his act any, and Ellen wouldn't have trusted John around her stock of liquor unwatched. Ellen's generous with family, adopted or genetic, but even her hospitality has its limits. That means his old man's been cut off. He probably picked a fight, or was pushed out for his own health and failing liver.

If John had been drinking at the Roadhouse, would he have gotten into the accident?

Ellen's not to blame. Dean's learned the hard way over the years not to exonerate his father of all potential for wrongdoing, which just makes what's coming next harder to deal with. Watching his father die was going to be hard enough. Watching him die while angry with him, justifiable or not, was going to wreck him.

Dragging his palm down his jaw, Dean rolls out of bed and showers again, the pungent soap scrubbing away the scent of sweat and fear. He knew enough by now to know there were plenty of jackasses who got off on that, too, the sharp tang of a terrified omega. He'd rather not smell like anything at all. Dean doesn't conform to the stereotypes of his gender, and he's not about to start now: he's spent ten years passing himself off as normal, and he knows what he's doing.

The problem is that here, in Lawrence, everyone knows otherwise. Here he will always be a 'bitch male,' and he gets the confirmation of it when he steps out of the Roadhouse and sees the Impala in the parking lot, words gouged deep into her door panels and trunk with a key. Grimacing, he traces his fingers across the marred paint, the slurs etched into one of the few things he has of his own, and brushes away the metallic flakes. "Oh, baby. What'd they do to you?"

He'll be able to buff it out and repaint once he gets to the garage. As much as he'd prefer to deal with it at Singer Salvage, back in Sioux Falls where he's been working for Bobby for years now, there's no way he's driving her almost four hundred miles across country this way, advertising like a goddamned ice cream truck the guilty pleasures available within. There's a long moment when he considers calling Ellen or Jo, rousing them to see if they'd be willing to bring him to the hospital, but there's no point to it.

Omegas were rare enough a mutation that when his first heat hit, everyone in the entire damn town heard about it and spread it on. And it's not like Lawrence is enough of a population center that the town's changed since he left. He doesn't give two shits about what these assholes think of him, and he has more important things to worry about today.

When Dean parks at the hospital, he weighs safety versus courtesy, and for once in his life courtesy wins out. The smart thing to do would be to park his baby right up in front of the doors, beneath one of the light posts around the lot. But that means kids and geriatrics and people having the worst kind of day and being hospitalized having to walk past the shit carved into his doors. He parks in the back and treks it to the hospital, and up the stairs to the right floor. The nurse behind the desk recognizes him from yesterday evening. She offers the same half-smile of greeting, trying to cross sympathy and welcome, and waves him through.

John Winchester is as still and lifeless as he had been the day before, unrecognizable beneath crushed bones and bandages and bruises. Air pumped through him raises and lowers the chest beneath the thin hospital blankets, and tubes steadily keep him hydrated and technically alive, but there's nothing of his father in this shell in front of him. He knows he's right to keep Sam out of this part, as he catches the visitor's chair in his hand, turning it to keep his back from the room as he perches on the edge of the seat.

His head is pounding, aching from the hangover and the lights and the discordant sounds of medical alerts. He doesn't know what to do with his hands.

"Hey, dad. I'm back." Dean's voice is thick, and he looks to the ceiling as if it can provide him guidance, huffing a humorless laugh at his own ridiculousness as he rubs the back of his neck. "They figure you aren't hearing me, brain damage and all, so I'm not even sure why I'm talking. I dunno. It's stupid." I'm stupid, he thinks, but he's never doubted that. "I. . . uh." It's been so long since John and Dean had a conversation, a real conversation, that he doesn't even know where to begin this one-sided farce of one. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing here. Called Sammy last night, he's getting a flight, will be here. . . after. I put it off, I guess. Chickenshit of me, but I don't want him to see you like this. He had enough trouble forgiving you after. . ." Dean shrugs, and even now he can't put everything into words. "If someone's gotta do this, make this choice and carry it . . . it shouldn't have to be him."

Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Dean glances around the room, at hospital beds left empty, and others hidden by curtains, and to the door where bright blue eyes look back at him, a man in a white coat frozen on the threshold staring at him. He doesn't make a move, but Dean startles as if he'd jumped in the room screaming 'boo' at the top of his lungs, and the doctor grimaces and drops his eyes from the stare. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to interrupt you. . ."

"So you just decided to stare instead? That's just creepy, man. . ."

Taking a bracing breath, the doctor nods, either to himself or to confirm Dean's assessment of his manners. After a moment, he rearranges his features into something stoic and more impersonal, a doctor's professional mask, and he steps fully into the ward with his clipboard under his arm. "I'm sorry for startling you. I'm Doctor Novak, the nurse paged me to tell me that you were here, Mister Winchester. . ."

"Dean." The correction is automatic, and Dean pushes himself to his feet glad, now that the surprise has passed, to be out of that chair and have something to focus on other than the real 'Mister Winchester' stretched out beside him. Dean extends his hand for the man to shake, and there's a long moment afterwards where he wonders if he's about to be snubbed. Novak stares at his extended hand as if he's confused by it or something, before reaching out slowly to cup his hand against Dean's, palm burning hot, handshake firm, and Dean could swear he feels a tremor run through the arm of the man in front of him. His head is tipped down to look at their joined hands, and that's when Dean figures it out.

The man in the bar last night. The dark hair and the voice and the unnerving stare that flicks back up to his face and latches there again, holding his hand a shade too long.

"Roadhouse. Last night. That was you, right?" He doesn't need the confirmation, but the way the doctor swallows and looks away is enough. Dean drops his hand like it's diseased, like he hadn't been holding on the same as the man in front of him, and scowls. This is the last thing he needs, some pretty-boy doctor perving on him on a day like today. Anger is easy, it's sweet relief, an emotion he can grab and cling to because it's familiar. "Great. Whatever. Well, don't expect you'll get any different answer than they did just because you bought me a drink. You make a habit of drinking all night before coming into the hospital next morning, or are we just special . . .?"

The changes in emotion, expression, would be almost amusing if Dean weren't so pissed. Embarrassment at being recognized, indignation at the sudden swell of anger misplaced at him, denial at the accusation of the pickup attempt, and by the time Dean's done his fifteen second rant he's getting stone-faced by someone who should give lessons on it. "I left shortly after you did, and only went because it had been. . . a very bad day. I purchased you the drink because it seemed that you were also having a 'bad day,' not to attempt to obligate you into. . ."

"Doctor Novak. . ." The nurse seems afraid to interrupt, frozen in the doorway by their low conversation and by the hostile stares both men swing at her for the interruption. "Doctor Adler needs your sign-off on the transfer from oncology. I have the paperwork. . ."

"Yes, Rachel. Thank you. Let Zachariah know that I will be with him once I have the chance to review the documents . . ." The blonde nods, unfazed by or accustomed to the abrupt dismissal and curt edge to his tone, slipping back out of the room, and the doctor turns back to Dean, shoulders square. "We have gotten off on the wrong foot. I apologize if my presence at the encounter last night has made this uncomfortable today, but it was not my intention then or now. I understand that today is difficult for you, and I do not want to interrupt your goodbyes. Do you have anyone else that you're waiting for before we. . .?" Dean shakes his head, before the words are finished, and Doctor Novak continues. He's found his rhythm, placed himself firmly where he intended to be in the conversation, and the sympathy doesn't seem forced despite how crappy they started this. "Would you like me to arrange for last rites? I am unaware of John's religious and spiritual preferences. . ."

Dean snorts, bitter and quiet, and shakes his head. "Him? No. He didn't care about all that. Maybe a long time ago, but not in years. That was my mom's thing."

There's a moment's hesitation, before the doctor continues, drawing Dean's attention back to him with carefully chosen words and a sloop-shouldered posture seemingly designed not to be imposing, beneath that oversized white lab coat that hangs off of him. "It might bring some small measure of comfort to the rest of your family, and his friends, even if he lost hope." Maybe there's something to that, considering how he's dying and what caused it. He seems to realize Dean is considering it, when he offers to help. "I can recommend the Presbyterian pastor who oversees the hospital chapel in the mornings."

This guy had to have a shitty-ass job if he's so chummy with all the priests, rabbis and ministers who give last rites. Lips twisting, Dean agrees silently, and the doctor nods and jots a note on his clipboard. "The process itself is relatively quick. We do not know how long he will persist without the respirator, but. . ." Doctor Novak looks down at his patient, now, one hand reaching out to needlessly adjust the covers over him, pulling them up to conceal bandages that the nurse had left bare to Dean's gaze, as if a man with no brain activity was recognizing a breeze. It's an almost endearing glimpse of what this guy must be like when he's not being chewed out for something that wasn't his fault.

". . . In my experience, Mister Winchester, I think that John is ready to move on."

Dean doesn't argue that. Allowing himself to look at his father, he nods slightly and runs a hand over his light brown hair, trying to keep from crying or making a fool out of himself in front of this guy. "Yeah. He never wanted this. He'd have put a DNR together long time ago if he ever even thought this far ahead. Never wanted to end up tied to a bed making machines breathe for him."

There's a pause, sympathetic and slightly awkward, like the guy doesn't want to keep offering useless platitudes, like he's gotten before, and when he speaks again he's quiet, the low gravelly voice somehow an unexpected balm to Dean's jangled nerves, flowing over him.

"I will call down to the minister, and return shortly. Do you need anything? Water, or breakfast?" The longer this guy talks the more Dean feels like a complete shit for damn near stabbing him from the start of this conversation, and Dean lets out a ragged breath and offers a faint quirk of his lips, strained but genuine, without looking away from John. "Any decent coffee here? Late night, early morning, and I just. . . "

It's a peace offering, and the man in front of him seems to recognize it as such. There's still something about him that strikes Dean as. . . weird. . . but he tucks his clipboard back beneath his arm and nods. "I'll see what I can do. Please don't hesitate to page us if you need anything else. I'll be back shortly, Mister Winchester."

"Dean." His dad being addressed by first name, and him being 'Mister Winchester,' he couldn't help but try to correct again. The doctor tips his head, acknowledging the correction, and turns on his heel. He's almost out the door again when Dean raises his voice, addressing his back because he needs to know, but he's afraid enough of the answer that he doesn't want to see the reaction, doesn't want to see how it's presented in the papers, or on the news. "Doctor Novak. . . the people in the van he t-boned, did they. . . ?"

He can't say it.

How do you ask if your father drunk driving on the highway managed to ruin more lives than his own?

The doctor stills in the doorway, one hand on the frame, and lowers his head without turning. "The boy will survive, he is stable. The father, he died instantly, before our paramedics arrived on scene. The mother. . ." Turning his head, he looks at Dean out of the corner of his eye, and Deanknows. He just knows. "We can't save everyone. Though we tried."

It looks like he and Sam aren't going to be the only boys orphaned today.

No wonder the doctor had needed a drink.

Swallowing heavily, Dean looks away, looks anywhere but at the doctor, or the mangled body of his father beside him. After a moment, he's left alone in the ward of comatose and insensate patients once more.

He should have been here.

xXx

Ten minutes later the nurse delivers him breakfast on a hospital tray, 'at the request of the doctor,' and though there's juice and water there's not a drop of coffee there. However, a small plastic cup holds two aspirin, and Dean's willing to overlook that transgression.

He forces himself to eat the tasteless hospital food, not because he wants it (it feels heavy in his stomach) or because she knows he should, but because he recognizes the kindness behind the gesture. Plus he's pretty sure the guy ordered up or stole him a patient meal, and apparently wrote him a prescription for his hangover. Dean's pushing frighteningly yellow scrambled eggs around on his plate with a fork aimlessly, trying to distract himself, when he smells coffee and the door opens again.

"I'm sorry. The patient coffee in hospitals is all decaf, and I needed to brew a new pot in the physician's lounge. I hope you don't mind, I brought one for myself as well. Pastor Jim will be up shortly, he is on the second floor consoling a family." The doctor extends a styrofoam cup of coffee to him, blue eyes huge and solicitous, and Dean gives up the ghost on trying to dislike this guy, creepy staring or not. It's a shitty situation for everyone, all he's trying to do is make it better, and he's been taking care of Dean's dad like he isn't the guy responsible for destroying another family. Somehow, it's better with this guy in here, making Dean less anxious if no less miserable.

"Thanks, doc." Dean mutters, nodding, and he pops the top of his coffee off to let it cool slightly. He almost rises to his feet when the doctor goes to move his tray away, just to pick up after himself, but he's waved back. "Sit. Please. I don't want to interrupt. . ."

"You're not interrupting anything. I don't have anything to say. We weren't close. We haven't been for . . . a really long time, if we ever really were." Dean finally interjects, and the doctor falls silent, eyes creasing slightly as he narrows them to try and see if Dean is being truthful with him, or like he's trying to understand why anyone wouldn't be closer to Dean, his head cocking to the side. He eventually places the tray on an empty bed and closes the curtains around it, as if hiding evidence until he can erase it properly, so that he doesn't have to stop trying to visually dissect Dean. Clearing his throat, Dean holds the cup up to his lips and shakes his head slightly. He's reluctant to push him away, but he won't have this guy screwing up on the job just because Dean . . . he doesn't even know why he wants him here.

"Look, doc, you got other places to be, I'm sure. I can just have the nurse page you when the minister gets here. . . "

"I don't." The doctor's expression shuts down, and Dean's almost sad to see the stone exterior again so abruptly. "For the moment, this ward is my sole responsibility."

A room of vegetables. And not many of them, at that. Dean cocks an eyebrow, inviting explanation, and hell he'd rather be in someone else's problems than his own for five minutes, pretend that he isn't waiting to pull the plug and end his father's life. "Don't strike me as someone who's crappy at his job. . . so you really must have pissed off your boss."

The doctor hums quietly in agreement but doesn't offer more. After a moment, he shakes his head as if he's trying to throw off a spell, whatever the hell it is he sees in Dean that keeps him staring. "I'll see to my other patients, though." As if Dean was chasing him off. Seems to be an ongoing theme, but Dean's not sure what this doctor is expecting. He can't just keep talking to his father, he can't process it. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do, and it was easier to be mad at someone, and now all he has is to be mad at his Dad, mad that after a lifetime of riding them, making their lives miserable. . . after driving Sam away to California and treating Dean as a failure since he figured out what he was, he's ending up like this. Angry that he'd thrown everything away after Mary died in the fire. Angry that he couldn't even die right, he had to make it so that Dean would have to kill him, so that it's his decision, that his death will always sit on Dean's shoulders, and now all that's left of the Winchesters are he and Sam. If anything ever happened to Sammy like this. . .

Dean doesn't realize he's broken until that thought floors him, until he realizes he's shaking and staring at the side of his father's unrecognizable face with tears burning down his cheeks and blurring his vision, breath coming in short burning gasps, and he isn't alone and needs to hold it together. Except that he can't.

Inevitably, that's when the pastor shows up. Dean can see him come to the doorway with its wide glass window, and stop there, signaled back by someone deeper in the room than Dean, and then the doctor is by his side again, offering him tissues without judgment in his eyes as Dean tilts his head up to look at him, a petitioner begging for some sort of answer to his prayers. There's a surprising empathy on the doctor's face, and after a moment he shifts, coming to stand beside Dean's chair. His hand seems to burn through Dean's clothing as it rests bracingly against his shoulder, propping him up in the chair and Dean shouldn't be leaning into this stranger's side, but he can't help it.

The fabric of the doctor's coat brushes his cheek, and he's a line of heat beside Dean that he can feel sink through his skin even with space between them, and it should be ringing warning bells in Dean's head, but he can't think and the world's crashing down around him. "Dean, we have all done everything we could. It's alright to be angry. But you said it yourself that this was his wishes. If you would prefer, I can remove the. . ."

"No." The reaction is fierce, a low growl, but the doctor beside him doesn't seem offended. Dean forces himself to stop leaning toward him, as difficult as resisting the pull of gravity, and breathes out carefully through his mouth, angrily scrubbing away his own tears. "No. We need to do this. I need to do this." Waving his hand dismissively, he doesn't look up. "Do what you need to do then we'll get the preacher in here."

After a long moment, the doctor nods and slowly steps away from his side, though he stays on the same side of the medical bed. Deft hands carefully slide IVs and tubes away, gentle though Dean knows there's really no need to be. Medical equipment is silenced, until it's just the hiss and click of the respirator, clear tubes running to the bandages across John's nose. The last lifeline, forcing air in and out. Footsteps approach them, and the minister offers his hand and condolences, but Dean is tuning him out, staring at the oxygen tubes as curtains are closed around them, cocooning them away.

Funny that it's the doctor's voice that reaches him, a low rumble explaining what the minister is doing with far too much comprehension of the religious aspect, as if he's describing a medical procedure. Dean doesn't know when he crouched down beside him, but there is an elbow braced on the arm of his chair, touching his own arm as a steadying point of contact, and blue eyes are fixed straight ahead on the minister's work. "They call this anointing of the sick, or extreme unction. When a patient is conscious for the rites, they are able to offer confession. . . here, like this, they can offer absolution. It's a forgiveness of sins based on the concept of contrition, that if he were capable he would feel regret and repent, and secure his place in the afterlife."

For the accident that killed him, Dean's got no problem imagining his father would feel like shit about it. About killing some kid's parents, and leaving an orphan in his wake. Everything else he's done wrong in his life. . . Dean's not so sure. But for all his faults, if there's an afterlife, Dean can't help but agree that for all the shit he went through in life John doesn't deserve more hell once he's dead. He's an asshole, and a shit father, and a drunk, but his eldest son is still loyally convinced that he's not inherently a bad man.

"The holy Communion. . ." The pastor carefully slips a wafer into John's slack mouth, past bandages, and Dean is staring blankly though his attention is fixed on the words of the doctor beside him, a low rumble as he leans into Dean, keeping his voice down to not disrupt the ritualistic recitation of prayers. "In his faith, and several others, the final Communion is commonly called 'provisions for the journey,' nourishment for the soul's travel to Heaven. Now he will anoint his forehead with Holy Oil . . . essentially, baptismal rites. . ."

The doctor seems to recite the final prayer in a whispered tandem with the pastor, though Dean notices a few words changed, 'Holy Spirit' instead of 'Holy Ghost' being the stumbling point that temporarily throws off the man beside him. Turning his head, Dean looks to the doctor to find his eyes closed. He looks tormented, broken, a deep sorrow that settles into the lines of his face and seems to add ten years to his age, but when he blinks his eyes open again and finds Dean looking at him the creases smooth out and he is collected again, sympathetic pain rather than his own.

There's a story to this guy, and any other day Dean would want to know it.

With a quiet, controlled breath, the doctor rises to his feet again and Dean knows this is his part. He tries to make out John's face beneath the bandages, this broken stranger, and he can't see it. Can't see the man he'd idolized so much, until his hero worship was betrayed. He tries to ignore the fine tremor running through his hands as he reaches out and touches the bandages over his dad's forehead. "Bye, dad."


	2. Chapter 2

At 10:41 in the morning on Friday, June 20th, Doctor Castiel Novak pronounces John Winchester deceased. He never regained consciousness after the accident. He felt no pain.

Pain is for the living.

xXx

It's suppertime by the time Dean leaves the hospital, a box of his father's personal items in his arms and his copies of all of the paperwork. He doesn't remember filling most of it out; in fact, tomorrow he will be fairly certain that someone else did most of it, and had him sign his name. The doctor who had stuck by his side most of the day, he doesn't doubt it.

Tomorrow he will pick up Sam from the airport at the crack of dawn. Tomorrow, he will have funeral arrangements to make. Tonight. . . tonight, he just wants to get back to Ellen's and drown himself in Jack, though the idea of it makes him loathe himself a bit more, hypocritical after what had taken his father's life.

He doesn't think to be concerned about his own safety. Stupid of him. He's in Lawrence. He should have known better. It's not dark yet, not in summer, but it hadn't been dark when he was young, either. Slipping between cars, the fist to his kidneys catches him by surprise, and his grip on the cardboard box in his arms slips. The next blow he catches with a block of his forearm, and he's not surprised to see Nate Hardey, throat purple and red, snarling in his face.

They're coming out from between cars, trying to pen him in. Adrenaline has kicked in: their slurs are ignored in favor of getting his back to the side of a blue sedan to keep them on one side of him, and then it's fists and elbows, too close of quarters for kicks. Grappling like this, he's pretty sure he can maim most of them, but there's little chance he's clearing this place without getting penned. The vice grip around his forearm spins him, crashing him face-first into the metal of the car, and slamming his head back he gets the satisfaction of a sickening crunch and a howl, but his arm wrenches higher on his back and the grip doesn't loosen, a body pinning against him shoulder to groin, the hard line of an erection riding the jean-covered cleft of his ass and a voice against his ear, blood dripping onto his neck and shoulder from the assailant's nose. "Feisty little bitch. Keep squirming, you know how much I like it. . . "

No one sees him coming.

No one would expect him to.

The farthest of the lackeys, Roy Etheridge, gets a worn black dress shoe to the instep, crumpling his right knee and off-balancing him. A hand knots in his hair and slams his head down into the knee rising up to meet his face, and he's down. Silent and wrathful, Doctor Novak joins the fight, flowing between cars. As his assailants turn to identify the noise, Dean wraps his leg around his captor's, uses his free arm to latch him tightly into place against Dean's back, and he drives backwards with all of his weight, toppling them both to the pavement.

He can feel the trapped arm behind him dislocate. . . but he can also feel the sudden freedom, letting him scramble to his feet as the head injury he dealt takes out another man. Two down. Three to go. And moments later Doctor Novak evens out the fight. Two fingers jam out at the bruised underside of Nate Hardey's throat, making him gurgle with blood or bile, and a fist catches him in the gut, doubling him over. Two on two. Fair fight. The toppled box of his father's stuff trips up the asshole nearest Dean, and he takes advantage of it. Left arm useless at his side, he uppercuts with his right, and it's not his best move ever, but it does the trick.

The last guy doesn't seem particularly excited to stick around and see how he fairs two-against-one. Turning on his heel, he bolts, and Dean reaches out to catch the doctor's sleeve, keeping him from going after him.

His partner in crime turns to look at him questioningly, clearly still riding the adrenaline of the fight, blue eyes electric, nostrils flared, jaw bunched. Dean shakes his head, holding him back with a simple touch he could easily shake off if he tried. "No good chasing him. No good calling the police either. Far as the people around here are concerned, I'm lucky I'm not on a breeding farm or something." Dean laughs, once, sharp and bitter, and he may 'accidentally' trip over Hardey on his way to turn the box upright, gathering his father's things one-handed. "Trust me. Last time, I was 'asking for it' by being me, and by smelling like me, and by being in public."

It's more than he's said on the subject since he was a kid. He doesn't get the chance to brush it off entirely. Split-knuckled hands reach past him as the doctor stoops in front of him, sweeping his father's dog tags up and dropping them into the box atop a battered leather journal, picking the small container up himself. "Show me where your car is. I can't stay here either, then." The doctor's low voice is solemn, and he shoots one last angry look at the bloodied attackers they've left in their wake. "I don't think they will report this. But if we drew attention it would be. . ."

Bad for a guy who apparently has already been assigned to hospital Siberia for something. Dean gets it. He just doesn't get why he's helping. "Back row by the hedges. The Impala."

Nodding, the doctor rises to his feet and leads the way. Dean can tell when he sees the car, because his steady gait is thrown off, and he hesitates before letting out a quiet curse. The vandalism, the bigoted words cut into the metal. "I hate this fucking town."

The curse sounds wrong from him, like he's testing it out, like he doesn't allow himself profanity often and is surprised by it himself. It'd be funny if Dean wasn't physically in pain and emotionally numb after the day's drama. Turning, the doctor seems to see something in Dean's face that he doesn't, and frowns in concern. "You're in shock. Acute stress reaction, which. . . given the circumstances . . ."

"I'm fine." Dean mutters, fumbling the car keys and unlocking the trunk for the box, trying to do it quickly before anyone rouses or people come to see the source of the noise.

"No, you're in shock." There's a faintly irritated undertone to his words, as if Dean's doubting his abilities as a doctor. "Please let me drive. Are we returning to the bar?"

And drag this shit to Ellen if these guys did call someone, or come looking for a rematch? Dean shakes his head slightly. "I may as well go 'home' so the cops know where to find me. I'll be fine. Thank you, y'know, for the asskicking assist, but I'm. . ."

"Injured, in shock, and being stubborn." The doctor gently pries the keys out of Dean's hand, closes the trunk, and shepherds him around to the passenger door, pushing him in. "Sit down. We need to leave quickly. Is there anyone at home for you?"

Dean snorts, and lets himself melt back into the leather seat, head tilted to the liner of his beloved car. "You saw all the family I got in this town, and I'm not putting Ellen in my crap, and Jo wouldn't stay out of it if I showed up this way 'round her."

Baby purrs, as the doctor takes them out of the parking lot, and apparently aimlessly away from the hospital at the fastest safe speed. "Turn left, and you can head towards the interstate, take you across the river to . . ."

"I'm bringing you home with me."

Well, that was pretty damned forward. Dean tenses, and the doctor beside him seems to sense it, see it, huffing impatiently. "If you attempt to throw yourself out of the door of a moving car, I am going to be less inclined to treat road-burn than I am the dislocated shoulder, bruises, and whatever you did to your back and ribs throwing that man. I did not join that fight to help you so I could take advantage of you myself."

"So you're just taking me back to your place to 'play doctor' then. Yeah, strangely not reassured." Dean mutters, and then raises his voice to a normal level. "Starting to feel like one of those idiots in the show my brother used to watch when we were growing up, guy with the stupid scarf and hair, calling you 'Doctor' all the time. Doctor who?"

The man beside him blinks, slowing carefully to a stop at a red light and shooting him a completely blank look. ". . . Novak. We have spent the majority of the day together, Dean, with your father's. . ."

Yeah. Clearly missing that reference. Rolling his eyes, Dean snorts. "Yeah, thanks, my head didn't go soft with one little tussle." The corner of the man's eye twitches visibly, his jaw bunching, and he makes an angry disgruntled noise at the idea that Dean had enough familiarity with fights to call that nothing. ". . . I was asking if you even have a frikkin' first name, or if I'm supposed to keep calling you doctor now that you're outta the lab coat and scrubs and into. . ."

Turning just his head, without raising it from the back of the seat, he takes in the rumpled suit, tan trench coat, backwards tie. . . "What are you, a doctor and an accountant, or is the whole fashion-forward successful doctor thing a myth?"

"Castiel."

"Gasundheit." Dean quips dryly, eyes closing.

"No, that's my name. Castiel Novak. And you're Dean Winchester."

"Yep. That's me." Somehow he can hear this guy frown, figures if he didn't have to have his eyes on the road, he'd be staring at Dean again trying to figure him out. "I'm tired. It's been a really, really shitty day. I want to get drunk, or go back and kill those guys, and tact and manners means filters I just don't give a shit about right now and I have no idea what the hell you want from me. You'd be better off dropping me at home and I'll. . . "

"We've arrived." Shifting into park in a covered, numbered space outside of a modest apartment complex, Castiel hands Dean back his keys before turning to face him in the seat, frowning. "I can set your arm out here, but I would prefer to do so inside where we can ice it as well. I just ask that you trust me." Pausing, Castiel rests a hand against Dean' bruised cheek, testing the clammy and battered skin beneath, and Dean wonders why he hadn't noticed how good he smelled before, as he turns his head towards the touch, nose brushing against the inside of Castiel's wrist. Castiel's breath seems to catch, his body freezing in-place, and when he speaks again he's quiet, voice a reassuring rumble deep in his chest. "I will never hurt you. Come with me. Please. I would like to get you inside, and settled. I am going to steal a tarp from the pool house and cover the car for the time being, until you are ready to leave again or you can get the paint repaired."

"You just abducted me, or whatever. Are you ashamed of me already?" Dean snarks tiredly, eyes still closed, nose nuzzled into the other man's skin seeking warmth, and the doctor's hand drops away slowly.

"I do not think that anything will be reported. But if it is, I assume hiding the car would delay authorities and allow you time to recuperate." Dean's eyes snap open at that, surprised, and beside him the doctor shrugs awkwardly before opening the driver's side door and stepping out.

Holy fuck, he's serious. And throwing himself further under a bus for Dean, if shit hits the fan. Or covering up Dean's location, if he's a scary psycho kidnapper, but it seems like a lot of trouble to go through for that, and he already spent most of the morning getting over treating the guy like crap.

Blinking, Dean opens his own door carefully and steps out onto the pavement, watching as the doctor strides towards the maintenance shed beside a too-blue pool beneath fine mesh covering to keep it clear of ash, and pops the latch as if he has every right to do so, gathering up a blue tarp and then striding right back over, oversized and out-of-season tan coat snapping in the wind off of the river. Dean helps smooth the weighted edges down over his baby one-handedly, and it's tacit agreement even if he's still stuck on the last few thoughts he coherently had.

Maybe this Castiel guy isn't entirely wrong about the shock.

Dean follows him quietly, shepherded into a second story apartment that, even before he steps out of the foyer, Dean knows this guy went ahead and got pre-furnished for him. It's got everything an apartment could need: flat screen television, couch, matching chair, matching table, matching dining table, with about as much personality as the hospital waiting room. Dean takes it as another potential indicator of crazy psycho abductor, but finds himself shepherded to the couch anyway as the doctor shucks his coat and shoes at the door and strides past him towards the adjoined kitchen. "I am going to get ice, and I am going to get my first-aid kit. If you are comfortable removing your shirt, I should take a look at the bruising on your back and ribs, and it will help me to set your arm."

"You seem to have a thing for narrating everything." Dean curls into himself on the couch, eyes closing, but by the time he does the doctor is back before him, tugging the coffee table closer to the couch and sitting on it, a bag of ice and glass of juice in one hand, and a medical kit about the size of one of Dean's toolboxes next to him. "Drink the juice. It will help with the shock, and raise and stabilize your blood pressure." He's already pulling a blanket over from the chair, throwing it over Dean, frowning at his shirt like it's personally offended him by not coming off. He doesn't argue it, though. "Sit up for a moment, please. Finish that glass, and then attempt to relax. It will make it easier for me to relocate the joint in your shoulder."

Gentle hands smooth over his arm, fingers walking along the curve of his neck to check for additional injuries and down to his shoulder to see the angle of the dislocation. Dean's not sure if it's meant to feel like foreplay, if his brain's doing the fight-to-fuck jump (wouldn't be the first time), or if it's just shock or reaffirmation of life after a death, or some other crap he doesn't pretend to care about in his apparently lengthening list of psychological issues. It shouldn't feel good. Dean knows it shouldn't, because he's bitten people heads off for trying to touch him after shit like today, but it's comforting this time, and he doesn't know why.

The audible pop of his shoulder moving back into joint is less pleasant. Dean spews profanities and slaps Castiel's hand back, holding the ice to his shoulder himself, reluctant to test the range of movement now. Castiel frowns, but once again doesn't argue it, and shifts to sit farther back on the table, quietly opening his kit and cleaning his own knuckles, waiting for permission to approach Dean again.

"You didn't have to do that, you know. Don't have to do this. . ." Dean frowns, looking away rather than face the blue eyes he knows are staring at him now. ". . . I mean, you could get into a lot of shit for getting into a fight at the hospital, and we don't know how badly hurt those guys are, and I'm not worth. . ."

"You didn't deserve that. No one deserves. . ." Castiel stops cold, blinking at Dean, and frowns as he cants his head questioningly to the side. "You don't think you deserve to be saved." Dean shrugs uncomfortably under Castiel's stare, and at least he recognizes the sigh of disappointment for what it is.

"You are welcome to the bathroom, and if you'd like you can have my bed tonight. I would like you to stay here. I don't. . . I would like to know that you are safe, and that you are not alone after what happened today." After his dad, not just after the fight. Dean looks back at Cas with a furrowed brow, curious.

"Were you going to stalk me on my way out of the hospital or something?"

"I was going to walk to the bus stop, and was weighing asking if you were staying again at the bar, because I was considering returning there tonight. I was not stalking you, but I. . ." Huh. Castiel blushes. Badass street-fighting doctor who'd taken the bill for all of his binge drinking yesterday without having spoken a word to him, and he's blushing.

"Two nights in a row, huh? Turning into an alcoholic on me, doc? Or were you just planning to actually come up to me at the bar this time?" Rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably, Castiel rises to his feet and packs his medical kit back up, tucking it beside the couch for the off-chance opportunity to finish fixing up Dean to his satisfaction, and generally busying himself with looking elsewhere. "You flirting with me, doc? Because last time a guy went this outta his way for me. . ."

He lets the suggestive comment tail off, but Castiel turns slightly, raising an eyebrow at him questioningly. As if he doubted that people went tothis level of ridiculous lengths to help him on a regular basis, and okay. Fair point. ". . . He was closely related to me, and I gave him shit the entire time for it and still do every time I see him." Dean concedes, and Castiel quietly snorts his amusement at the admission.

"I am going to change clothes, and we are going to order dinner. If you have a preference, I have take-out menus in the drawer of that table." Dean has his car keys, and Castiel isn't locking him in. He knows where the car was, and he recognizes that he's being given the opportunity to bail. He also gets the distinct feeling that while Castiel isn't denying that he's attracted to Dean, he's not planning to make a move. Which Dean's remaining brain cells after today's emotional roller-coaster admit he's secretly thankful for. He's pretty fucked up in the head right now.

Castiel closes the bedroom door behind him, quietly, and Dean pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, raising it to his ear as he opens the drawer of the table beside him.

"Dean, are you okay?"

Jo answers on the first ring, and he pulls the blanket tighter around him as he drops take-out menus onto the table in front of him. "Jo, you really gotta ask that?"

The background noises fade, Jo disappearing from behind the bar and into the kitchen, he's sure. "No. Sorry, that was a stupid question. I'm so sorry, Dean, about your dad. . ." He doesn't answer, closing his eyes to keep them dry, and she seems to get the hint. "Are you coming back tonight, or going back to John's place? We don't mind, we can . . ."

"The asshole from last night jumped me on my way out of the hospital, with his friends." Jo's teeth snap shut mid-word, and he can hear the swing the door open again, the quick swell of noise, and he's damn sure she just waved Ellen over to her.

"Where are you? Did they. . .? Do you need me to go down to the station, or. . .?"

"I'm okay. I'm like eighty percent sure they're all still breathing, too. I had. . . help. I guess." Running his hand over his hair, Dean tugs the blanket around himself and gives up on the menus for the moment, pushing himself to his feet. He can hear the shower starting up, off of the bedroom, and he figures that means he has a couple of minutes to find out if this guy's got a sex torture dungeon attached to his pantry or something. "If anyone comes sniffing around about me, can you drop me a line? I'm going to lay low for tonight, and I'll be around tomorrow once Sam gets in."

"Dean Winchester, you tell me where you are this minute. I am not going to have you hiding in some damn ditch or something because. . ."

Ellen has now apparently crowded close enough to Jo that they can both hear the phone. "I'm fine, Ellen. The doctor from today. . ." He does not want to think about today. ". . . He uh. . . kinda helped break up the fight, and now he's letting me crash with him. I'll text Jo the address, so you don't spend all night worrying and know where to send search parties or whatever tomorrow if you don't hear from me, and I'll call you once I've got Sam tomorrow morning."

He doesn't let himself linger on the phone long. He's actively perusing the apartment's few personal effects, and has had his attention caught at the built-in bookcase of the apartment, where books crowd the shelves, stacked on top of rows when they won't fit otherwise. In a silver frame, three damn-near identical men, differentiated by attire, by posture, and apparently by vocation, stand on the front porch of an old brownstone looking at least ten years younger than the man in the shower right now. On the right, arm slung around a woman with honey-blonde hair and a baby in her arms, a man who is the spitting image of Castiel is frozen in a laugh with his head tipped back towards the sky. On the left side, another brother is tilted to share a slight, faintly awkward looking grin at whatever joke had set them off, looking past a woman with soft brown curls and big green eyes who has her arm possessively around him. He can pick out which one's Castiel easily, though. . . head tilted down, his own hair sticking up every which way, a hand at the back of his neck awkwardly. A neck that is encircled with a priest's clerical collar and starched shirt, beneath the camouflaged U.S. Army BDUs with NOVAK embroidered across the pocket.

He's still holding the photo in his hand when Castiel opens the bedroom door, takes in Dean handling his personal effects, and pads barefoot back to the couch to compulsively stack the jumbled menu without commenting, his head tucked down and hair flattened to his head by the shower, t-shirt sticking to damp skin. "Emmanuel and Jimmy. My brothers." He finally offers to Dean, who is now scouring the shelves without putting the photo down, entirely unabashed at being caught.

"Yeah, I figured that part out, strangely." Dean mutters."Identical triplets, huh? I'd say that I bet you were the life of the party, but. . ."

"Priest." Cas agrees, wry and bitter, before he even has the chance to make the joke. "Chinese, Italian or American food?"

"And soldier. And apparently doctor."

"I clearly couldn't decide on a stereotype and stick to it. I think the deli. They make burgers, and will deliver if we order over $25. We'll have to have dessert to meet that." Castiel is nervous, upset even, and Dean turns to face him, taking in the tight creases lining his face and the way his eyes aren't moving from the menu.

"Cas. . ." The use of a nickname drags Castiel's head up, blue eyes widening slightly, and even Dean's surprised how quickly he fell into that. To be fair, Castiel's a mouthful and he called the guy 'Doctor' all day. "I'm sorry to snoop. Just sitting still and wondering and dwelling is. . ." He shrugs.

"I understand." Letting his breath out, Castiel's rigid posture relaxes, and he rises from the couch after a moment and joins Dean at the bookshelf, trading the menu for the picture. "Pro Deo Et Patria. For God and Country, the motto of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps. I was an ordained Catholic priest and military chaplain."

"Was." There's a question there, and Castiel acknowledges it with a quiet grunt as he puts the photo back on the shelf carefully. There's a puzzle piece there, too, that Dean recognizes. Someone in that photo isn't in the picture any more. He's treating the framed photograph with reverence the way Dean treats the picture of Mary Winchester he's kept with him since he was four.

"I had a crisis of faith while deployed. In God and in country, as it were. Chaplains are required to be noncombatants, by international accord and military protocol. We're never technically prisoners of war, according to the Geneva Convention. When we are taken, we are kept to minister to the prisoners. So we are fed, and we are cared for, and we are technically free to go . . . all while men and women we trained beside, lived beside, ministered to and counseled are treated. . ." Swallowing thickly, Castiel turns away from the photo and walks back to the couch, settling down with his elbows across his knees, one hand rising to his temple. "I acted outside of accordance with those conventions and was discharged from the military, and I asked to be dispensed from the clergy. I'd spent the last four years at the side of Army doctors, trying to offer God to dying and brutally treated soldiers. When I came out of it, I wanted to try and help them with more than prayers. And here I am, after five years in a seminary education during college, four years in the military, four years in medical school, and two years in residency."

That's a lot of school, probably even from the perspective of someone who wasn't a drop-out with a GED. And a lot of raw intelligence for a guy whose job now is apparently babysitting the comatose and treating bedsores.

Dean pushes away from the bookshelf and joins Cas on the couch, and damned if he doesn't feel guilty for bringing this up now. He wants to pry more, to find out what it is about that picture of Cas and his brothers that's got the guy so wound up, but instead he rests the menu on Cas's knee, waiting until he looks up and meets Dean's eyes again, guarded and braced for. . . something. How much shit has this guy gotten for hisown background?

"I'll have a burger, if you're ordering. And whatever kind of pie they've got made."

The look of sheer gratitude makes it worth dropping it for now.

"If it's okay with you, I'm gonna steal your shower. I don't want to smell like. . ." Cas nods in sympathy and understanding, and he grimaces like he can smell those guys on Dean too. "Top drawer has pajamas. You're welcome to anything you need in the bathroom. When you're out, I'm going to finish patching you up, if that's alright with you."

xXx

Castiel has his borrowed shirt off, his ribs half bandaged to protect what he suspects is a fractured rib from the punches, and is wearing a persistent blush that Dean's pretty damn sure he wouldn't have in a hospital setting given his professional demeanor, before he figures out two more things he could learn from that one picture.

One: given the guy's maybe thirty-five or thirty-six max, the addition there means that he was on his way to Catholic priesthood right after high school, and unless he was getting some pretty young, or out chasing tail while slogging through medical school, he's spent a damn long time celibate or inexperienced as hell. He's pink to his ears from having a hand against Dean's back, at just being around an omega who's starting to realize he finds the guy inexplicably attractive. An omega who now smells like him; his clothes, his soap, his shower. This guy could probably diagram the human body, inside and out, and despite that he was looking like his cheeks were trying to combust just by touching the bare skin of Dean's freckled shoulder, and doing a medical task that would seem menial to him. Dean's about ready to bet his Impala on Cas being a frikkin' thirty-something year old virgin, hard as it is for him to believe.

Two: Identical triplets with his looks, his intelligence, and one of whom would apparently stop and risk a career he had fought through hell to get to, and possibly even assault charges depending on how those guys spun it, and the contempt Cas had on his face when Dean mentioned breeding farms. . . Cas is quite likely a crèche baby: carefully selected genetics, fertility drugs or egg-splicing, pick any willing or unwilling omega, enjoy a wet hole to fuck a knot into or jerk off in a jar if you're squeamish, and nine months in a captive human incubator later you get your perfect little princes or princesses who the 'fertility companies' will even raise for you until they're just the right age to show off. And as long as you can prove or fabricate proof that the omegas are all paid when they're done and drug them until they look happy for a government walk-through, it's all legal. Just doing their part to ensure the survival of the human race and obeying their biological imperatives.

Cas is a product of a high-end breeding farm. And clearly not exactly happy with that fact.

And finally, the third conclusion: maybe Dean isn't the only person in the room working through issues.


	3. Chapter 3

It's a confusing night, overall. Dean spends it half convinced he's on some sort of strange first date, and half that he's in a closed hospital ward on psychiatric watch or something.

It's not that the signals are mixed: Castiel is pretty obviously into him and hasn't tried to deny it, but he's being so studiedly inoffensive that it's like Dean's still back in that damned hospital room while someone waits for him to cry. And yeah, in the hospital room he did break down, but now that everything is done he's just. . . numb. He can feel something scratching away beneath his skin, anger and shame and grief, but he can't let it out, or he won't.

Dean can't decide if he wants Castiel to make a move so he can punch him in the face and reaffirm everything he knows about the type of asshole that'd pick up a screwed up Omega, or if he wants Castiel to make a move so he can throw himself into something physical just so he doesn't have to think, but he's increasingly certain he wants the guy to make a move because that at least would be familiar.

And if Dean were to be honest about it, also because Castiel smells really fucking good, and there's something distracting about watching Castiel wrap plush lips around a fork that makes this guy eating pie almost as good as watching porn.

But Dean's not going to initiate anything, either.

It's not that he's some sort of shrinking violet of an Omega, waiting for some Alpha protector to come around and hide him from the big bad world, or tell him it's okay for him to enjoy sex. Fuck that, he doesn't need permission. He likes sex, when it's consensual and he gets to pick the partner. Yeah, usually he picks up women, because all of his equipment is working thank you very much, and there's just a hell of a lot less stigma buying condoms than pills. With the right condom on, most women wouldn't expect an alpha to knot anyway, and he's a one-night-stand king so no one asks questions and life passing as something he's not goes on smoothly. When he has other urges, he deals without, or take matters in his own hands. It's safer that way. He's not going to go set himself an appointment with some specialist just so he can get a goddamned birth control prescription that costs an arm and a leg every month. Clinics that do that sort of shit are usually protested anyway because God forbid some 'bitch' doesn't want to go forth and multiply for the good of the country and the world.

He doesn't need that shit aimed at him.

It's only three days a month that it's an issue that he needs to go chase something to scratch a different itch, and he's damned good at controlling himself and sweating it out miserably instead. Bobby Singer, saint of a boss and unofficial uncle that he is, somehow manages to make his 'three day weekend' every month something Benny and Garth and the others don't even suspect. If they do suspect, they don't care.

As a rule, he doesn't sleep with anyone while his heat makes him feel like he has no control. Control is one of the myriad Dean-Winchester-Issues, and he knows it. He hasn't ever needed Sammy bitching and rolling his eyes and teasing to know that. Sam means well, but he doesn't quite getit; when Dean's hulking Alpha baby brother walks in the room with his law degree and his unquestioned masculinity and an indecent foot taller than everyone around him, not a damn person tells him what to do. So when Dean tells him to back the fuck away from his radio, or drop a topic, or 'buy him some goddamn pie' he laughs to himself and flips his brother off but does what he's told because that's just Dean.

So yeah. This is a control issue, and he's in someone else's house, eating on someone else's dime, and this guy took care of his father, fought at Dean's side, has been seriously going out of his way for him, and slowly but surely Dean's wracking up a debt, but he doesn't know when to expect what he owes this guy to come into collection. This situation is outside of his control. Which is pretty fucking hilarious overall because. . . Cas let him pick dinner. Cas hasn't attempted to do anything, even treat Dean's injuries, without Dean's permission first. Cas handed him the remote control and folded himself into the far side of the couch, against the opposite arm, and if it weren't for the fact that the coffee table is holding his meal Dean's sure he'd be on the chair. And Cas is currently staring at him like he's a bug in a box while he flicks to the news to check and see if the hospital thing made it on there.

"Still staring, dude. And still creepy."

"You're anxious." Castiel counters, confused and concerned, bare feet just barely peeking out beneath the blanket pulled over him like he's an eighty-year-old grandpa doing the frikkin' crossword on a rainy Sunday or something, instead of the quiet badass Dean is starting to suspect him of being.

"Could have something to do with the staring." Now he has to worry about the fact that this guy apparently can read him.

Castiel frowns, brow creasing, but he deliberately tears his eyes away from Dean's face. Which would be more convincing if it didn't mean he was staring blankly in the opposite direction instead. Subtlety clearly is a lost art with Castiel. "I apologize. I just don't know what else I can do to make you comfortable. . ."

"Dude, I'm not going to be comfortable, okay? So just. . ."

"Why not?" It sounds like an honest question, and Dean can't tell if he's for real or not. Meanwhile, the 'not staring' thing seems to have lasted all of thirty seconds, except now Dean's staring back. Crap, it's contagious. Awareness of the fact that he's doing it doesn't stop him, though, and Dean's meeting Castiel's eyes when he continues eventually, filling the silence Dean has left him with low, reassuring words that wrap around Dean like rich velvet. He swears he can feel it like a slow drag over his skin, warm and soft and tactile, and he shivers despite himself. "You have nothing to fear from me, here, Dean."

"Who the hell said I was afraid of you?" Castiel doesn't exactly smile, but the corners of his lips soften, the blue eyes Dean's found himself staring into lighten, and Dean can tell he's amused. It stings him, but the more defensive he becomes, the more Castiel seems to brighten in the face of his ire. "What, you think I am? You weren't the only person holding your own in that fight, doctor." Cas agrees with a slow nod, not condescending, but no less pleased, as if he's thrilled Dean's arguing. "Look, I'm just waiting for the quid pro quo, here. No one goes through all this and doesn't expect something in return. You want something from me, and. . . "

Cas's expression closes off, as sudden and complete as it had in the hospital when he accused him of drinking all night and endangering his patients, and it's a small victory but Dean will take it. He's always had a gift for pissing people off, and he'd rather force this to a head one way or another. So when Castiel unfolds himself from the couch, Dean's braced for a fight, and instead gets a pissed off Alpha fussily folding his blanket and snatching up the trash of their meal, taking it towards the kitchen garbage.

"Tell me, Dean. The blonde girl at the bar, she's your family you said. You are close to her." Well that's not a direction Dean was expecting this to go. Is this guy expecting Dean to hook him up with Jo? Dean doesn't blame him, Jo's damned amazing and he heard him laughing and talking with her on his way up the stairs, but something sets his hackles on edge about it and he doesn't realize he's standing up until after he's on his feet.

"Closest thing I have to a little sister." Dean's words agree, but everything about his posture and tone is hostile, defensive, and he convinces himself that the hot spike of jealousy through his gut is just protectiveness. He's hardwired as a big brother: Jo slid in there neatly after Sammy on his list of priorities.

"If I bought her a drink. . ." Dean's knuckles whiten, hands clenched into fists at his sides, and he stares at the back of Castiel's head as the doctor stands in the kitchen, methodically rinsing out their cups at the sink. "Do you think I could get her to come back here and . . ."

"No." His growled response is definitely protective, and if this asshole thinks Dean's going to help him con Jo into anything for him. . .

"Because you believe she deserves better. You know she deserves better than to feel as if she's bought and paid for with a drink or a favor." There's something triumphant to Castiel's words, and he turns from the sink, his chin high and a righteous anger on his face to match Dean's own. Dean has Castiel by an inch or two of height and probably a decent amount of muscle, but at this moment you wouldn't have known it. Shoulders square, he prowls out of the kitchen, each step taking him closer to Dean until for the first time tonight he is invading Dean's personal space as if it's his right to, eye to eye and practically nose to nose. "So why then would buying you a drink, or helping you when you need it, obligate you tome? I did it because I believed I should, not because I expected anything in return. Because you are a human being, Dean, and you have every right to be treated with respect too."

The sun is setting on this, the longest day of the year, and as it shines through the slatted miniblinds of Castiel's living-room window it bathes everything in molten gold, like it is attempting to preserve this moment for them somehow, trap them like insects in amber. Dean's frozen in place, only a breath between him and Castiel, for the first time in his life struck dumb. He doesn't have a ready comeback to blow this guy off, or a quip in his arsenal to throw him. He wets his lips nervously, looking for something to say, and Castiel's eyes are instantly drawn to the motion, watching Dean's tongue swipe across his top lip, bottom lip pulled between tight between his teeth and rolled back out moist and soft, a gesture so quick and so unconscious that Dean only realizes that he's doing it when it's under so much scrutiny.

Castiel is staring transfixed at his lips with eyes gone dark and wide, and this at least Dean knows. The temperature in the room seems to skyrocket, heat pooled in the insignificant space between them, pheromones thick enough that it feels there's barely room for air. He's prideful enough to be slightly embarrassed by how intimately aware he suddenly is of everything about this man in front of him. The curve of his jaw, the way his adam's apple bobs in his throat when he swallows, how close he is, the dark fan of his lashes and the way his breath catches, and the nearly predatory stare that is unwaveringly fixed on Dean's mouth and the slight tilt of his head that would slant their lips together if he just took one half step closer.

". . . You want to kiss me."

"Yes. I do." Arousal has taken Castiel's already deep voice and forced it into something that sounds painful, as if a human throat shouldn't be able to articulate something so raw. "Very much." Eyes sweeping back up, he seems to be searching Dean's face, and Dean has no idea what he sees there like this, but it isn't embarrassment that has a flush creeping across Castiel's cheeks this time, lust and wonder and finally something almost sad. "And you would let me." Castiel's breath skates along Dean's skin, a shaking exhalation as Cas gathers together the ragged shreds of his self-control, reluctantly closes his eyes to the vision before him, and with one deliberate step then another, puts three feet of distance between he and Dean. "Which is why I can't."

And on that confusing note, Castiel turns away and walks toward the couch, settling onto it again heavily and pressing the heels of his palms over his eyes, waiting until his heart stops racing, until the urge is controlled and instinct is carefully schooled by reason, to drop his hands and sigh. Picking up his blanket again, he flicks his gaze quickly up at Dean, before looking away to the television. "It has been a long day, Dean. You need rest, to recuperate."

The dying sunlight is finally deepening to red, a bloody tinge across the carpet, and though it's only just now dusk it's nearly nine o'clock. Still early for a night owl like Dean, but not so early that he couldn't justify it to himself with Sam's flight tomorrow. Still, he's caught in confusion, not entirely certain where the left turn was in his interactions with Castiel Novak, but aware that everything veered off track pretty abruptly there. Running a hand over his hair, he huffs quietly, looking down at his bare feet. "What, is that like doctor's orders or something?"

"More a friend's advice." Castiel stares up at him from the couch, hesitant and hopeful, as if the offer of friendship might be so offensive that Dean would slap him down. The sheer ridiculousness of it finally shatters the tension stretched between them, and Dean rolls his eyes towards the ceiling and shakes his head slightly, and he tries to pass it off as exasperation but he can feel the day catching up to him all at once again, crashing into him now that the potential for shoving it away, physically distracting himself, has been yanked back from him again, prickling at the corners of his eyes and stealing all the warmth from his body. "Yeah, okay. You're not wrong there I guess. I can crash on the couch, though, man. You don't need to give up your bed for. . ."

"You're taking the bed. That will be orders if I must. You have a broken rib, you've bruised your shoulder and your back, you have multiple contusions, and this couch isn't that comfortable." Holding up a hand to stall Dean's immediate retort, he continues. "It's fine enough for me. Go rest, Dean." And as if to put an end to the discussion, Castiel turns off the television and stretches out on the couch as best he's able, pulling the blanket over himself and turning his face in towards the cushions, freeing Dean from the weight of his gaze.

Dean finds himself staring, trying to figure him out, and he clears his throat before speaking, drawing Cas's eyes open again, looking up at him. "Why? I mean. . . you got in the fight or whatever because you think it's what any decent person would do, but why. . ." Why follow him out of the hospital? Why buy him the drink? Why not just kiss him? What the hell is it that Castiel is seeing when he stares at Dean? Because it's not just that Dean's attractive (hell, he knows he's hot) or that he's an Omega, because Cas is resisting physical attraction fairly hard, clearly. But news story or not, Dean still has to worry if this guy just pissed away a career and got himself into a world of trouble, over him, and he'd like to know why he thought it was worth it.

Castiel looks tired like this, the shadows settling into his face, an arm curled beneath his head and his body folded into the couch and shrouded beneath the blanket. "Because you fought back, Dean. You stood up, and I find that remarkable. You didn't sit back and let anything happen to you, in the bar or at the hospital or in the parking lot."

Dean stares down at him for a long moment, then shakes his head and slips through the darkening room towards the bedroom, closing the door behind him gently. He doesn't bother locking it. Because with one subtle word of emphasis he got an answer to both questions.

Castiel doesn't want Dean to let himself be kissed.

He wants Dean to want it, too.

Right now, though, all Dean really wants is for this day to be over. Sinking into Castiel's bed, Dean curls himself around a pillow and tries to will the world away. He doesn't want to dream tonight.

xXx

By some respects it's one of the worst days of Dean's life since Mary Winchester died and tore his entire world apart, drove his father off the deep end and left an infant Sammy with a preschooler as a parental figure.

It's one of the worst since the day after the first heat finally left him, his father's disgust and disappointment even before he trudged exhausted to his school and was overpowered and beaten and abused.

His father is dead, two innocents are dead with him, another young boy's chance at a normal life was destroyed, and he could have died fighting those guys and left Sam alone in the world, and he would have been raped, humiliated and beaten if he didn't fight.

He's an orphan, an outcast, and a freak. He should have had Cas bring him to the bar, should have at least gotten a bottle of Jack or something, should have chased nightmares away the way he always has (or has always tried to).

There's something else going on, though, and he doesn't understand it. Subconsciously, he knows that somehow, some way, everything is changing again. But this time he has no idea what to expect, and that terrifies him.

And yet, cocooned in Castiel's bed, he sleeps soundly.

xXx

He wakes to the smell of smoke and low cursing, and for half a moment he's four years old again and terrified, but no. No, that was a long time ago. Then he's just blearily confused, warm and comfortable and well rested and not hung-over, his nose pressed deeply into a pillow in an attempt to block out the smoke or wrap himself in the smell that clings to the fabric around him, trying to figure out where he is.

Cas's place. Cas's bed. Cas's scent. Apparently, Cas's cursing in the other room.

Castiel, the doctor. The doctor who was with him when his father. . .

The memory of the previous day hits him like a ton of bricks, bringing a depression crashing back in that he didn't know to miss. Moments later, the fire alarm goes off outside of the bedroom door and abruptly dies after loud footsteps, a crash, and an electronic warble. Rolling out of the bed quickly, Dean pads to the bedroom door and opens it, braced defensively by instinct, and he must have been out of it yesterday because he doesn't have his knife on him.

Just as well this time.

Cas is standing in front of the doorway with a broom upraised to the ceiling in his hands, a dead smoke-detector in pieces at his feet, and a sheepish expression chasing its way across his face as Dean shows up right in front of him. "Um. . . Good morning?"

". . . Not from the looks of it, Cas." Shaking his head slightly and forcing his posture to relax, Dean points at the broom. "If I try to walk past you and see what you've set on fire, am I gonna get hit with that?"

Cas drops his arms and the broom abruptly, as if he didn't notice he was still holding it aloft, before shaking himself out of it and rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly as he strides back towards the kitchen, tucking the broom back into the pantry. "It's possible that I overcooked the eggs."

The 'eggs' are lumps of charcoal adhered to the bottom of the pan when Dean ambles into the kitchen, poking at it experimentally to see it crumble.

". . . Yeah, I'd say that's a 'possibility.'" Picking up the pan, Dean tips the offending experiment into Castiel's trash, shaking his head and biting back a laugh he shouldn't allow himself, but there's no way he can let this go without teasing. He doesn't know if he should be touched or a bit weirded out that the guy tried (and failed) to cook breakfast for him. "So, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say 'chef' was never among your previous professions?"

"I can usually accomplish TV dinners, frozen waffles, ramen, toast, and boiled eggs on bagged salads." Cas shuffles awkwardly, raising and dropping his shoulders in a faint shrug, and closes the laptop on the dining table that he had apparently gotten distracted with while supposedly cooking. "It was never an issue growing up. And then they served meals at seminary, then the mess hall in the Army, and then the cafeteria at the hospital. . ." Dean's staring at him, and he's not going to laugh because today is not a day he should be able to, no matter how damned amusing it is that a grown man who can stitch a human being back together has never learned to cook a basic meal. As if sensing Dean's train of thought, Cas gestures defensively at the living room. "There is a reason I have all of those take-out menus, Dean."

Dean snorts in agreement, the closest he can allow himself to a laugh, and turns in place to take in the layout of Cas's tiny kitchen. The clock on the oven says he has an hour and change before he needs to go get Sam. "Early shift today at the hospital?"

"Mid-morning shift, but an early bus." Dean turns to squint at him when he punctuates the answer with a jaw-cracking yawn, hiding it behind his hand and leaning against the pantry door.

"Did you sleep at all last night?"

"A bit." Dean makes a disbelieving sound, shaking his head slightly and moving across the kitchen to pull open Castiel's refrigerator door without a by-your-leave, taking in what he has to work with. He shouldn't have let Cas talk him into taking the bed. "By no fault of the couch's. I was thinking."

"When you do that alone on your couch all night in place of sleeping that's called 'brooding,' Cas. Or worrying. Are you worried?"

Cas shrugs, too falsely nonchalant to be believable, and Dean pauses with the rest of the carton of eggs in one hand and a half-gallon of milk in the other. "You are worried."

"A bit." Cas admits, and apparently morning conversation can be 'a bit' limited with Cas still exhausted. Stepping into the kitchen, Cas squeezes past Dean as he relocates in front of the stove, and takes a canister of coffee grinds from the counter beside him, filling up the carafe at the sink. It's close quarters, but Dean doesn't move away from the stove, and Cas is apparently single-mindedly fixed on producing caffeine for them both and pretending that it is perfectly normal to crowd shoulder to shoulder with Dean. "Nothing that happens today will be your fault . . ."

Dean scoffs, and Cas turns to face him, and now they're too close. There's no difference in space between them, but the eye contact makes it immediately more intimate, and Dean's right back to the kiss that wasn't. Castiel is too if Dean's reading him right, but he doesn't pull away and doesn't blink, and there's none of the sharper edge of tension of the night before. He shouldn't be getting this comfortable with the complete lack of personal space, or perpetual staring, or Cas's phone-sex voice. "Dean. Stop worrying."

Dean smirks faintly, and breaks the moment by gesturing behind Cas at the pantry, sinking back into the comfortable sense of camaraderie without letting himself question it. He does his best to mimic Cas's tone and voice and slings sarcasm back in place of Cas's earnestness. "' ordering me around.' Then make yourself useful and get me a mixing bowl, bread, and find me a pan you haven't ruined."

Somehow, Castiel rolling his eyes is one of the most amusing things Dean's seen in a long time. It involves his entire body, apparently, as he turns away to obey Dean's own orders. Hell, it's almost as good as Sam's bitchface as justification for why Dean's a deliberate pain in the ass, and immediately he's far more comfortable falling into cooking in someone else's kitchen, smirking to himself as he begins making French toast. He continues giving Castiel orders until he's got everything he needs, and concludes by telling him to stop staring at him and get dressed for work, without the bite of discomfort at the scrutiny this time.

It's not until the second slice of egg-soaked bread is sizzling in the pan that the thought of cooking up entire loaves of bread for Sam growing up turns into thoughts of picking Sam up at the airport, and from there into thoughts of funeral preparations and how his father would have sneered at Dean settling into a domestic routine with some alpha like a good little bitch, and the shit carved into the sides of his car that he would have to watch Sam's face as he read it when he picked him up in his baby. He doesn't know how long he's subsumed in those thoughts, as he mechanically flips the bread, but he stiffens when Castiel rests a hand on his shoulder to get his attention and pull him out of his thoughts.

"Dean? Are you okay?"

"I. . . need to make a phone call." Dean tears away from Castiel's comforting touch abruptly. Dumping the French toast onto a plate for him and shoving the plate and syrup into Castiel's hands, he ignores the look of outright worry on Castiel's face and strides past him to Cas's bedroom, grabbing his phone from the nightstand and jabbing at Ellen's entry. It takes five rings for her to answer.

"It's before seven in damn morning, if this is a fucking telemarketer so help me God I am going to hunt you down in your home and. . ."

"Ellen, it's me."

Ellen's sleepy tirade cuts off immediately. "Dean?"

"Yeah. Sorry. I know, you keep bar hours, and I didn't want to wake you. . ." Dean drags a hand over his face and drops to sit on Cas's bed. Ellen interrupts him before his apologies can continue, her voice softer than he's heard it in years of Winchester-style familial affection.

"Just tell me what you need, Dean."

xXx

The bed dips slightly as Cas lowers himself gingerly to sit beside Dean on the edge of it, as if Dean is going to bolt at his nearness, or take offense at the idea that Cas thinks he can invite himself into his own bed. Cell phone pressed between his palms, head bowed, Dean fights back a sharp swell of annoyance at being treated like some fragile frikkin' flower that is going to crumble at any minute.

Raising one hand, he presses his knuckles over the corners of his eyes without opening them, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm fine, Cas. I just needed a second to get some things sorted out."

Castiel doesn't agree, but he doesn't argue either. The silent non-judgmental treatment is going to piss Dean off, but he realizes everything is pissing him off, and that's not necessarily fair. Especially since the alternative is one or both of them talking, and he doesn't want that either.

"I brought you coffee." Cas finally says instead, and Dean raises his head and looks over to Cas, who is carefully attempting not to spill the offered mug despite the fact that his bed is so soft that it's like trying to perch on a cloud with a mug in each hand. He paints a ridiculous figure, black slacks and bare feet, a tie draped over his neck but left untied, white dress shirt with its collar left unbuttoned, holding a coffee out to Dean as a peace offering for the second day in a row. He looks wary and hopeful and strangely vulnerable for his rumpled state of half-dressed.

"We gotta stop meeting like this." Dean quips wryly, taking the coffee carefully, but Cas nods and catches his gaze, steadying his own mug in both hands.

"I wish we'd met in different circumstances." Cas agrees solemnly, and he's doing it again, staring at Dean as if he holds all of life's answers somehow if Cas could just tilt his head a little more to the side and get the right angle on it. "I'd like to . . ." blinking, Cas interrupts himself to look down at his coffee instead, weighing his words before starting again, and Dean gets the feeling whatever he was going to say, this isn't exactly it. "I would like the chance to see you again before you leave Lawrence."

And that's the crux of it. He's only here until the damn funeral is taken care of, his father finally laid to rest beside his mother again, and then he's getting the hell out of Lawrence. He has to. And that means the chances of he and Cas seeing each other after this are nil. Dean loves Ellen and Jo, but it's a hell of a lot easier for them to come to Sioux Falls than for him to drag ass to Kansas.

Cas just made enemies in this town on behalf of a guy he's probably never going to see again. And whatever is going on between them that has Dean wanting to lean into Cas's space even now just to leech his warmth and wrap himself in his smell, that makes him think Cas wouldn't miss one of his pillows if he stole it just to take that with him, that has them comfortably sharing space like they've known each other for a lot longer than a day . . . that's all temporary.

"I'm gonna be picking my brother up in just a bit. . ." Cas nods to himself before Dean even finishes speaking, and when he looks up at Dean again his face is carefully schooled understanding. It takes Dean a minute to catch it, but he knows by the time Cas is standing again that beneath all of that is rejection. And god fucking damnit there's a line between being 'understanding' and being apparently the sainted champion of all the downtrodden sob story Omegas in the world, and being a self-defeating idiot-and Castiel just crossed that line by not even letting Dean finish before slinking away, 'giving him space' and 'taking a let-down gracefully'.

Dean rolls his eyes, pushes himself to his feet and pads across the carpet to Castiel. That's it. He's done with the sympathy bullshit. Taking the coffee mug out of Castiel's hand as he stands next to the dresser picking socks out, Dean puts both their drinks down on the dresser, turns back to look into Castiel's confused eyes, and he has a point to prove, just to break the tension and counter Castiel's crestfallen demeanor. Taking the unknotted tie in each hand, he drags Castiel forward and uses the cant of his head to seal their lips together.

For a moment that feels a lot longer than it actually is, that's it. No response. Castiel has frozen in front of him like some sort of statue, unresponsive and shocked. Dean is about to step back, to snark or tease Cas, except there's a hand at the small of his back, locking him in place, and with a shuddered breath Castiel surges into the kiss. Dean's first coherent thought as Castiel yanks him closer, pressing their bodies together and stealing the gasp from Dean's lips is that there is no way in hell this guy is a virgin. And if he is, Dean wants to know what the hell the Catholic Church is teaching its priests, because holy fuck. Castiel kisses like it's the main event, licking his way into Dean's mouth with the taste of maple syrup and hot coffee and cinnamon, his other hand cupping the back of Dean's neck possessively.

The heat between them seems to come from nowhere, from humid panting breaths between kisses as one bleeds into the next. Dean fists his hand into Castiel's hair, pulling him back in again when he thinks he might stray off-task by trying to talk, blunt fingernails dragging against the sensitive skin at the nape of his neck. Dean's not sure when they moved, but what breath he managed to pull in is driven out of him again by the impact with the wall, making the cheap apartment-provided oil painting beside them wobble dangerously on its hook. Cas catches the hand at his back and threads their fingers together, pinning one of Dean's arms above him against the wall and he buries his face into the bend it creates between Dean's neck and shoulder, nosing the collar of the borrowed t-shirt out of the way to drag his stubble across Dean's skin, laying wet open-mouthed kisses onto skin that feel softer after the gentle abrasion.

Tugging at Castiel's hair in an attempt to drag his mouth back up, Dean slots his knee between Cas's thighs and rolls his hips instinctively, tearing a deep guttural moan from Cas's lips as their erections grind together. Even separated by dress slacks and soft pajama bottoms the friction of it is electric. Castiel's eyes are wide, as if he's shocked at himself as he tears himself away from Dean's tender skin to meet Dean's hooded gaze, and while he doesn't pull away he's still again save for his breathing. It's that stillness that eventually pulls Dean back to coherent thought, blinking in slow, shocked surprise.

What the hell was all of that?

Dean's heard of natural chemistry, of mating attraction, pheromone fog, whatever the hell people want to call it. He's seen the effect even the lingering traces of his heat can have on others, but he's a week off from that and this isn't about wanting something, anything to abate a need, it's about wanting Cas right the hell now. Castiel looks wrecked, pupils dilated until the color has almost been chased away and only a thin line of electric blue is left. Slack and parted lips kiss-bruised and pink, high points of color painting his cheeks and his chin, his jaw flush from the prickling drag of Dean's two-day stubble and his untidy is hair tousled by Dean's hands. He looks drugged, and Dean's pretty certain he's not the only one.

"That was. . ." It took Cas two tries to get that far with words, and he can't even find an end to the sentence. Dean knows how he feels.

"Yeah."

Closing his eyes, Cas leans in again, squeezing Dean's fingers between his own and grazing his lips over the arch of Dean's neck, a feather-light touch that sets nerve endings alight, dipping his tongue into the curve of Dean's clavicle like he can taste the chemicals between them pooling into the hollows of Dean's body. "I would very much like to see you again, Dean."

The fear drenches Dean suddenly, like ice dragged down his spine abruptly cooling overheated skin, and Castiel pulls back from him with wide eyes before he even has the chance to push at his shoulders, sensing the change of mood. He has no idea what is going on. He can feel slick on his upper thighs, trying to soak the borrowed clothes and ready him for his Alpha's knot, his body is rebelling against him, shutting down his higher brain functions and reducing him into a wanting, needy thing to be claimed and owned. And he can't be that. He won't be that.

He's here for his father's funeral. He killed his father yesterday, pulled the plug to end his life. He needs to remember that, needs to remember who he is, and he can't. . .

"Dean. . .?" Castiel's thumb brushes across his cheekbone lightly, his hand cupped to Dean's jaw, gentle against the bruises, and Dean rips away from his touch as if it burns him.

"You're going to miss your bus. I need to get dressed before Ellen gets here. Have to get Sam at the airport." Every word is true, but even in Dean's ears it rings of misdirection and denial. When he moves away, Cas lets him.

He doesn't let himself look back to see Cas's face crumple into confusion and dejection. Snatching up his clothes and phone, he ducks into the bathroom, leans against the closed door, and lets shame drag him down to sit on the tile with his head on his knees.

xXx

Castiel is long gone by the time Dean emerges again.

A phone number is penned neatly across a sheet of computer paper set in the middle of the table. No note, no written plea, just his name and phone number in careful block letters, as readable as the doctor's scrawl can make them. An offer, as inoffensive and unassuming as Castiel is able to make it, and Dean stares at the paper blankly as guilt rises up again and makes it hard to breathe, to swallow, to think.

Everything from breakfast has been tidly put away, and Dean can imagine Cas going through the motions of it all, right down to relocating Dean's cup of coffee to the table and putting a slice of the French toast saved for him on a paper plate, covered in saran-wrap, the syrup beside it. The blanket is folded on the couch, the bed is made, Dean's keys are positioned next to the meal, his shoes are lined up beside the door, the dishwasher is running, and everything of it speaks to Castiel stalling as long as he was able, trying to see if he'd emerge again, keeping himself busy waiting for Dean and refusing to press him into coming out.

Dragging his palms down his face, Dean slumps into the seat at Cas's table, and waits for Ellen to call.

xXx

When Castiel arrives at work, it's to a summons from Zachariah.

When he returns home again three hours and a long wait at a bus stop later, it's to an empty apartment where his phone number and name still wait on a piece of paper, exactly where he left them.


	4. Chapter 4

"Just. . . whatever you're about to say, Ellen. . . don't. Please." Slamming the trunk of the Impala, Dean tosses his bag into the back of Ellen's old Explorer and drops the tarp down around his car again to hide the vandalism, brushing past Ellen to the passenger's seat of the SUV and climbing in and wishing he could hide the bruises as easily.

She lingers outside the Explorer, out of his view, but Dean doesn't turn even when she slides into the driver's seat. There's a long moment of silence from the other side of the car before the key turns in the ignition, and she reaches out a hand to Dean, rumpling a hand over his hair comfortingly before shifting gears.

Resting his head against the window, Dean closes his eyes and tries to ignore the sympathy rolling off of her. He's more comfortable with a chastising slap to the back of the head, or a teasing comeback, or a beer slid to him in commiseration than he ever will be accepting her pity, and he can't imagine it being anything else. "I'll have the car running smoother when I give it back to you than when you leant it to me."

"I know you will, honey."

He leaves his Impala behind, with the intention of returning to get it once the day's errands are done and he can take her back to the garage and fix her up. Once it won't be his brother in the passenger seat, having to live with what tore his already crappy childhood apart even further. Sammy has enough to deal with, without living through Dean's shit again.

Dean can't decide if he's going to regret having to go back to Castiel's apartment complex to retrieve her. He doesn't know if he's going to man up and knock on the door, or slink in and drive her away without bothering Cas again.

He can't think that far ahead yet. He needs to be there for Sam, first. They're all the other has left any more.

xXx

He leaves Ellen at the Roadhouse by her request, comforted by the fact that if she needs to she can crash in the upstairs bedroom for a couple of hours, or get Ash or Jo to bring the truck around for her. For an hour, he has nothing to distract him from his thoughts but driving, the stretch of I-70 that takes him alongside the winding Kansas River for a ways, up 435 north and over the Missouri River into Kansas City.

It's always comforted him in the past, tires rumbling along on blacktop roads, hills and plains and rivers rolling past, but it feels wrong this time. He's too high up off of the road, the turning radius is off, and when he turns on Ellen's radio every song on the radio is wrong. He can't handle the power ballads on the oldies station this morning, the mix station is apparently being DJed by the most spitefully cheerful bastard in the world, and he would rather shoot himself than listen to the crap on the pop station. Ellen has Fleetwood Mac in the CD player, and dear God does Dean not want their big damned breakup album right now even if it's the right era for his usual music.

By the time he gets to the airport he just wants to see his brother. He's rocking on his heels, hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans, watching the new arrivals spill out into the lobby when he spots his brother towering above the rest of the queue. It's strange, but even when Sam decided to outgrow him by half a foot, he never felt small when the Samsquatch engulfed in him one of his long-armed hugs: he's a pillar of support, giving as good as he gets, propping him up and letting Sam lean on him.

"Hey, Dean." Sam's voice is thick with bottled up pain and relief at having his brother back, and Dean can read him, understands perfectly.

He can do this. He can be the big brother, and keep his shit together for Sam, because while they may not have always gotten along, John was Sam's father too. It's Sam's loss as much as it is his. And for all of a minute, arms locked around his brother until the thump on the back they give each other, signaling the end of the welcome, he's ready to swing at whatever the hell the day throws at him.

Until Sam turns, and extends his arm and draws a beautiful blonde forward, coiling one arm around her shoulders and the other around her waist, a broad palm resting over her hand on her belly, tucking her up against his chest like a barrier between he and his brother, chin resting on her head as she extends her other hand with wide, sympathetic eyes. "I've heard so much about you, Dean. I'm so sorry for your loss, and I wish. . . we weren't meeting this way."

Beautiful, blonde, kind, supportive, pregnant girlfriend Jessica.

Dean fixes on his most winning smile, the one that gets him out of the shit he perpetually digs himself into, and wraps both his hands around her small palm, and the ring that presses into the swell of his thumb. "You're Jess? He didn't tell me you were gorgeous. Explains why he was keeping you to himself."

He also didn't tell Dean that she was coming with him. Or that she was pregnant, though by the look of it not for too long, just enough that her slim frame makes it apparent in the clinging t-shirt the stifling summer weather necessitates. Sam has the good grace to look a little sheepish, a little guilty, but Dean extends that smile to his brother and he means his next words. "Congrats. Both of you. I'm happy for you."

Sam's getting the life Dean always wanted for him, that he scraped cash together for college to try and ensure. The Stanford education, the job at the law firm, the girlfriend he's heard about every phone call and over Christmas is becoming a permanent fixture in his life, and this is the apple pie life in living color.

Sam has Jess to buoy him along in this mess too.

Dean's not jealous, and he's not bitter. But he realizes with crushing certainty that he needs Sam a hell of a lot more than Sam needs him anymore. It leaves him a little nauseated, a lot off-balance, and disoriented. He was holding it together for Sam, has been since he was four.

"What happened to your face?" Sam's hazel eyes have narrowed on the bruise painting the line of Dean's jaw. He can see when Sam starts looking for other signs of injury and he straightens slightly, shrugging his sore shoulder in negligent casualness.

"Blowing off some steam at the Roadhouse. You know how it is."

Jess takes him at face value. Sam doesn't but he lets it drop for now, and Dean resolves to just shove it all to the side.

xXx

"Where's the Impala?" Sam's shrewd gaze swings to his brother as Dean unlocks Ellen's Explorer, and he cordially holds the passenger door open for his fiancée, and that's wrong too. Since he was sixteen and got his learner's permit, pretty much the only person to ever ride shotgun with him was Sam.

"Gotta do some repairs before she's road-ready for the drive back to South Dakota. Ellen's giving us a loaner, figured it was easier . . ." Dean meets Sam's gaze across the hood of the Explorer, unflinching in the face of his little brother's blatant disbelief that he'd let the Impala become undriveable and completely secure in the fact that every word he just said was true after a fashion. "Just as well, though. This thing is probably safer for Jess. . ." Swinging himself into the driver's seat, Dean flashes Jess his grin again. ". . . And my nephew. Or is it niece? Okay, when do we know and when do I get to start buying annoying gifts for the rug-rat? Because I think finger paints and a drum set are in order. . ."

Dean can feel Sam's suspicious stare on him, and he casually adjusts the rearview to keep himself from having to see it as he engages Jess in conversation. Eventually talk of the kid and the impending nuptials and the obligatory stories of Sam as he was growing up, all his best embarrassing material carefully edited to keep the topic away from the gaping chasm that is John's presence in their upbringing, sucks his brother in as well.

Good.

xXx

When the funeral director asks if they have a minister or priest they would prefer to officiate the small funeral, Dean remains completely silent.

It's a quarter of the cost of a casket and funeral to cremate John, the funeral director tells them with a carefully practiced look of sympathy, explaining in simple terms what the process entails, and the benefits of feeding John's body into the fire. They'll place his urn next to Mary Winchester's, and add her husband's name to her memorial. Dean's fine. He's fine, and answers questions posed to him, keeping his head in the game.

And then he calmly excuses himself from the conversation, walks to the restroom with its stupid plastic flowers and potpourri in an urn on the counter, and throws up every bit of the French toast and coffee he had at Cas's

John outlived Mary, but he's going to burn anyway.

Sam cuts a check while Dean's out of the room, not giving his brother the opportunity to assume responsibility for this, too, and he watches the pallid older Winchester resume his place by Jess's side, considerate and charming as he insists they need to get her lunch and take a break before the next stop at the hospital.

xXx

When they go to the hospital to sign off on the paperwork to release John to the crematorium and gather their copy of the official death certificate, he almost expects to see Castiel. It's his signature scrawled across the bottom, and the paperwork all bears the same careful block lettering as the phone number Dean left behind. They're on the wrong floor and he shouldn't want to see him anyway, and definitely not with his brother and Jess in tow.

He's a fucking coward, and he knows it.

There are a couple of hours left until Cas's shift would end. "You guys want me to drop you off at the hotel to get settled in?"

Sam is definitely suspicious, but Dean would expect no less. His baby brother is the brains of the family, and Dean didn't raise him to be an idiot either. That doesn't mean he's going to let himself be cornered.

xXx

Sam corners him outside the motel anyway.

As they haul Jessica and Sam's bags out of the back of the Explorer, Dean is stopped by a hand on his shoulder, keeping him from following the blonde into the lobby. They've planned it; she doesn't hesitate to keep going, and he can just imagine the silent conversation that she and Sam had when he got out of the car, because they worked that kind of communication out decades ago. He feels cornered by it immediately.

"Dean, what's going on with you?" Dean has his mouth open, a biting sarcastic retort planned, and Sam cuts through the air with a dismissive hand, and the big puppy dog eyes are just painful for Dean to try and face down, as he pleads for Dean to confide in him. "Look, I get it okay? Dad's gone, and there's nothing we can do to bring him back, and I'm sorry I wasn't here, I am, but. . ."

"You think this is about you? You think I'm. . . what, pissed at you or something?" Dropping the bag back onto the floorboard, Dean scrapes his nails through his hair, rolling his head back to stare up at the blue Kansas sky. "Look, it's not about you, okay? He's gone. I'm coping. . ."

"Yeah, and how's that?" For the first time, there's a bite to Sam's voice that is more than just concern. There's fear, and a bit of anger, and Dean lowers his chin to look his brother in the eye, raising a brow and challenging him to spit out whatever it is on his mind. "Where's the car, Dean? Why are you covered in bruises. . ."

Dean scowls, and thrusts the bag into Sam's hands, turning to close the hatch of the Explorer. "Leave it alone, Sam."

"Dean. . ." Sam moves fast for a guy who looks like his legs should need a whole five extra minutes to get instructions from his brain, and the too-long floppy hair has half fallen into his eyes, eyes that are wide and worried as he blocks his way. "Just. . . look. I know how you cope. I've known how you cope since you were thirteen. The car is gone and you're covered in bruises, Dean, and I just. . ."

And their father just died drunk driving.

Dean deflates, his anger draining away, and he slumps against the side of the Explorer and shakes his head. "It's not like that, Sam. I didn't wreck her, I . . . look, I just ran into some problems with the locals, and I didn't want to make an issue out of it around Jessica."

Anyone who buys Sam as a harmless oversized puppy he appears to be at times has never seen him go from pleading little brother to protective Alpha in less than three seconds. "Who was it?"

"We took care of it, Sam." He has questions about who 'we' entails, but Dean's not ready to go there yet. Reaching out, he punches Sam in the shoulder—probably a bit more roughly than is strictly 'friendly,' but affectionately nonetheless. "Your girl's inside, man, and we've been dragging her around all morning. Your pregnant fiancée." There's a pointed commentary there. He's not letting Sam off the hook entirely about that.

The sheepish look leaves Sam staring down at his boat-sized sneakers. "I'm sorry, Dean. I wanted to tell you in person, and it just. . ."

Rolling his eyes, Dean shakes his head. "Next time, just pick up the goddamn phone. We don't see each other often enough, I'd have made a trip for this Sammy. Look, I got a couple things to take care of, and one of us needs to get to Dad's, make it look a bit less psychotic to the random outsider, and I don't think we want Jess in that."

Sam frowns, looking away at the motel, and Dean knows he won that point. "Go take care of Jess. I'll come crash your fancy continental breakfast tomorrow. Make sure they save me some of the waffle batter." Dean's halfway back in the car, before bracing his arms on the door, calling out to his brother as he ambles across the parking lot with his bags. "Hey! I'm best man, though, right?"

He pulls a reluctant laugh out of Sam, and that's three quarters of his job when things are shit, so he counts it as a win.

xXx

Cas doesn't come out of the hospital doors when Dean figured he would. The bus pulls away without him on it, and Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel, frowning. He needs to fix this, give the guy some explanation, because he earned that. Because Dean's issues shouldn't be everyone else's. Because he shouldn't come home to that paper and end up feeling even more rejected than Dean knows he must have made him when he went from practically humping the guy's leg, to locking himself in the bathroom.

Dean doesn't have Castiel's number, but a quick search gets him the information desk of the hospital. Three rings, and he asks for Doctor Novak. The hold is interminably long, and he braces himself for Cas's voice on the line, trying to figure out how to start.

"I'm sorry, sir, but Doctor Novak is on administrative leave. I can connect you to someone else in long-term care if you. . ."

Shit.

_Shit._

He clicks the disconnect button, shifts into drive, and floors it.

xXx

Cas isn't at his apartment. Pounding on the door doesn't produce any response except to piss off his neighbor, who yells to shut the fuck up from where he's planted in front of his own television next door. Dean curses under his breath and rests his forehead against the forest green door, before pushing off of it and moving to the side, shielding his eyes with one hand and flattening his nose against the glass, peering through the miniblinds as best he's able.

Castiel's crumpled trench coat and suit jacket are tossed across the arm of the couch.

Dean can't see the white square of paper he left there in the morning on the table any longer.

Goddamnit.

Dean's leaving victims in his own wake now, like his father did, careless and reckless and too absorbed in his own fucked up mess to see what he does to the people around him. He knows 'administrative leave' is code for anything from suspension to being outright fired, and the timing is too coincidental for him to think it's anything but related to what happened yesterday. Cas had spent all night up worrying about it, and still tried to comfort Dean when he expressed any concern.

Whatever happens today isn't your fault his ass. One day and he's managed to fuck up this guy's life.

Pulling his phone out, he tries the one last thing he really knows about Cas at all. The only other place he can think of that Cas would be.

"Roadhouse, this is Jo, what do you want?"

"Aren't you cheery." Turning to plant his back to Cas's door, eyes closed, Dean doesn't let Jo fall into the usual banter. "Look, this is a long shot, but the guy who bought me drinks the other day, he there tonight? 'Bout my height, dark hair. . ."

"Oh, blue eyed hot professor looking guy. No, haven't seen him. Why, did you two hook up? Or are you trying to cadge more drinks out of him first. Honest, you're family, I'll take your money for booze like anyone else's Dean. . ."

Thumping his head slowly against the door, Dean sighs. "Jo, just. . . do me a favor and text me if he shows up, okay?"

He disconnects at her curious affirmative, and leans over the railing to look down at the apartment complex. His car remains covered where he left it. The pool is empty of people. Cas is a regular pedestrian, if the open parking space and the bus rides are any indicator, so he can't be toofar.

(He could have gotten on a bus and gone anywhere, but Dean needs to set some parameters first or he'll cast his net too wide to start with. His father obsessively searched for a psychopath for twenty years, Dean knows some of how this works.)

Where the hell would someone like Cas go after a day like today, if not the bar he goes to?

It seems obvious, once he thinks about it. Fixing his eyes on the spire in the distance, Dean lets his breath out in a sigh.

xXx

Saint John's is the largest Catholic Church in Lawrence; a red-brick behemoth that takes up two blocks of the town, backing onto the city park. The Lutheran church is barely visible on the other side of the park, through the trees, and the County Courthouse and Sheriff's Office serve as the other boundaries of the park. The lot at the church is empty so parking is easy, and he takes the steps two at a time, certain that he's right.

It's a Saturday evening in June, so the city park still has people in it even as the sun begins to sink, but the church seems empty at first glance. White arches to catch the light from the dozens of stained glass windows, and though the single chandelier is turned off there's light enough to see from the inset bulbs by every alcove holding statues, in candles that flicker and gutter as the door booms closed behind him, and pooled in colors and shapes across the pews, stretching images painted on wood and fabric in light and glass. It's peaceful and quiet and soothing and he doesn't even subscribe to their religion, but he could see the appeal of coming here after the shit day Cas has had. Dean has a moment of panic that he's going to have to start over, figure something else out, his footsteps too loud in the empty church as he stands in the middle of it and turns in a circle.

He lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding when he sees a familiar mess of brown hair bowed in the last pew of the second story balcony. He mounts the steps slowly, his feet heavy, and then makes his way down the aisle.

Cas doesn't look up as he approaches.

"Hello, Dean."

Whatever Dean expected to find, it wasn't this. Shirtsleeves rolled up, elbows resting on his knees, shirt half unbuttoned to the undershirt below and tie missing, Castiel sits in the last pew of the church, hands clasped together not in prayer, but around the bottle of Johnnie Walker hidden behind the rise of the pew before him. Eyes fixed on the crucifix on the opposite side of the church, he raises the bottle again and pauses with it there, the glass lip of the bottle resting against his own lip. "It's not as sacrilegious as it seems, whatever you're thinking of me right now. I don't do it often, but the first time I ever got drunk, it was at a church. It's likely true of many of us." Tipping the bottle, Castiel takes a deep pull from the whiskey, and Dean watches his Adam's apple bob before he breaks away with a rough gasp at the burn, red-rimmed eyes watering, and Dean's not entirely certain he's not in tears.

"Cas. . ." He doesn't know what to say, and after a moment's silence, waiting for him speak, Castiel snorts bitterly and continues as if he had never been interrupted, as if he hadn't desperately wanted Dean to go on, to say anything at all after addressing him.

"The Evangelical churches and many of the Protestants do enjoy their grape juice, but the Catholics. . . we know our wines. There was a case donated to the Seminary while I was there. . . most of our alcohol was given to us, people can be very generous in the least useful ways. . ." Cas's voice is clear, his words crisp and unslurred, but as he interrupts himself Dean can tell he's drunker than he appears. "Preservatives. Unsuitable for Communion. We had to dispose of it all of course. Waste not, want not." Holding his bottle up to the light, Castiel squints through the two inches left of the bottle. "I think more people would attend Mass if they had whiskey instead."

"Might've had a chance of actually getting me in the doors, if they did." Dean finally sighs, and settles beside Cas on the pew. There's a stretch of two feet between then, and Dean feels that distance keenly. He did this, he should be able to help somehow. Maybe Sam doesn't need him, but Cas clearly does right now.

"Mm. The Church is conflicted about your existence, and the Church doesn't like conflict. They'd rather alienate than revise their concepts." Cas corrects him, with a distasteful twist to his lips, and he raises the bottle in mock toast to the altar. "Me, though, they're completely decided on . . . did you know I'm still a priest? I quit, left, defrocked myself, but none of us ever get to really 'quit.' It's the one job that can't get rid of me, not completely. I could murder someone on the altar, and I would still be a priest. I 'gave my soul unto God' and there's no expiration date on that. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, I will be a priest until I die, and then a priest in Heaven or Hell, because it creates an. . . an 'indelible mark on the soul.' Communion is the same way. Accept it once, and you're a Catholic forever. Even Hitler was still a Catholic, just excommunicated and nonpracticing obviously. I think they'd likely censure me again, though." Rolling the edge of the bottle against his lip again, staring consideringly off into space, he has dragged himself into a tangent again. "For the murder on the altar. Not that I'm considering it. I can't. . ." Something twists in Castiel's face, a deep fissure of pain and guilt in his careful mask, and Dean waits until Cas takes a breath again before reaching out across the space between them, and somehow it feels natural to lay is arm across the back of the pew, his hand barely resting on Cas's shoulder, prepared for him to shrug it off.

Instead, Cas sinks into the thin cushion behind him, turning his head slightly so that his breath skates along Dean's arm, raising the fine hairs there in the wake of his shuddering exhale, his eyes closed and his voice thick with a laugh that holds little humor in it. "But I would have to have a Papal decree to officially be free of my vows of celibacy. I can kill a man and confess my sins and be right by God, I could but to sleep with someone else I have to have a seventy-five year old man in Rome pray and ask for me, and then write me a letter. Like a permission slip." Leaning towards Dean's shoulder, Castiel lowers his voice conspiratorially, bitter humor in his tone. "Which is ironic. As I am a 'lay' priest now, and it's a perfect opportunity for a joke and I'm wasting it."

With a sigh, Dean reaches for the bottle, waiting until Cas meets his eyes and places the whiskey in his hands with a faint smirk, as if daring Dean to join him drinking. He never really needed much of a dare for that, and it's not going to leave him clutching his pearls to risk pissing off a religion when he's still pretty ambivalent about the concept of God, but he's got a car outside and Sam's fears were pretty on-point. "You're a chatty drunk, and I only got about half of that. Never been the churchgoing type. So, is this depressed drinking or guilt drinking?" Castiel raises one eyebrow questioningly and turns on the pew to face Dean, legs folded beneath him. He lays his head on the battered wood top of the seat, leaving Dean's hand resting lightly against the top of Cas's head. "About the permission slip thing or something."

Cas's laugh is low, rolling, richly amused and 90% alcohol driven pure sex and Dean weaves his fingers into the soft hair beneath his hand. Three quarters of the job is winning the laugh, and Dean would love to hear Cas laugh again when there wasn't heartbreak behind it. "Oh. No. If the Vatican is ever that interested in my sex life they can send some Bishop as an envoy."

"Yeah, and how would that conversation go?" Dean snorts, and takes a practiced pull from Cas's whiskey; just a sip. He can feel Castiel's drunken interest in how he shifts in the pew at the motion, the weight of his stare, the catch in his breath. When he drops the bottle back into his lap, Cas's hand wraps around his on the glass bottle, fingers dragging along his until it's in his grasp alone, and he brings the bottle to his lips like he can taste Dean there as Dean continues his train of thought. "'Forgive me, padre, for I sinned big. I bought a guy a couple drinks at a bar, kicked ass for him the next day, lost my job because of him, took him home with me, and then. . .'"

"'And then. . .'" Castiel questions blankly before both eyebrows shoot up, red rimmed blue eyes wide. "If you're offering to have sex with me, Dean, I would prefer I was sober enough to remember it. I'd hate to wake up in the morning and . . ."

Wake up in the morning with Dean having bolted without his number again. Wake up in the morning feeling like he'd taken advantage of Dean, or Dean of him. Wake up in the morning and not even remember losing his virginity. Closing his eyes, Dean huffs a quiet laugh and straightens his legs out, pushing himself to his feet and offering a hand down to Cas. "Yeah, okay. Let's just get you home first and . . . and figure out where we're going from there. I want to hear what happened, when you're ready to talk about it."

Cas doesn't look particularly thrilled at that idea. Looking down at his lap, he notices the last dregs of the whiskey and finishes it, and then lets the empty bottle hang by his side in a loose grip as he takes Dean's hand and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. Swaying forward to lean heavily into Dean, he rests his forehead on Dean's shoulder for a moment, almost but not quite an embrace.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. . . this morning, I was too. . ."

Guilt drinking after all, the dumb self-blaming son of a bitch. Wrapping an arm around Cas's shoulders, Dean pulls him closer, bracing him upright, and shakes his head. "Shut up, Cas. 'Cause I don't think they'd have to ask questions sending an envoy if you make me kiss you again here. We'd probably break something sacred. Be interrupted by nuns. I dunno."

"There aren't any nuns here." Cas corrects into the bend of Dean's neck, and Dean rolls his eyes.

"Yeah yeah. That's enough church lessons for the night. Try not to throw up in the car, the woman it belongs to owns a gun and likes to put fear into the hearts of drunks everywhere. And don't pass out, I don't want to carry you down these stairs or up the ones to your apartment."

xXx

For the second night in a row, Dean ends up in Castiel's bed. This time, however, with a former priest turned soldiers' chaplain turned doctor wrapped around him, head resting on his chest.


	5. Chapter 5

A chill steals over Dean in the middle of the night, unpleasant after the comfortable blaze of heat that has blanketed him since sleep overtook him. When he feels that warmth again sometime later with his outstretched hand, sequestered as far away on the bed as it can get from him, he's drawn to it. Dragging that comforting presence back to his side and twining around it, keeping it from escaping again, he's jolted awake by a hand stroking over his hair and a low chuff of air that sounds like laughter. His mind starts piecing together facts from there.

Cas got up in the night.

Cas got up in the night, and just got back into bed, and tried to give Dean space again.

Cas gave Dean space, and Dean then apparently slid all the way across the bed and right into Cas's space, to the point where they are both now on the very edge of the bed. He can feel the swell of a bicep beneath his head, the curve of a hip against his groin, a thigh trapped beneath his, where he's thrown his leg over Castiel's, and the smooth skin of Castiel's stomach against his forearm where he's managed to slide his hand into Cas's open shirt and beneath his undershirt, holding him close with a hand curled possessively against his ribs. And it's too much to hope Cas didn't notice, either, because the hand attached to the arm that Dean has decided to hold hostage pauses in slowly trailing through Dean's hair, and he can feel Castiel's silent laugh again as Dean goes completely stiff against him, suddenly alert.

"Please don't stop on my account, Dean. Apart from worrying that if you startle you're going to push me off the bed, I'm quite happy this way."

"Yeah, I bet you are." Dean grumbles quietly in return, but he doesn't pull away. After a long moment of waiting to see what Dean's reaction will be, Cas shifts slightly in his grasp, turning to allow himself to drape his free arm over Dean's waist, hesitant as if Dean will topple him off the bed after all. Dean squeezes his eyes shut tighter, and sighs. "How are you not hung over as hell and unconscious so I don't have to explain this?"

"Orange juice mixed with a little baking soda, B12, Thiamin, and a crushed Zantac and then a slice of bread with honey." Dean cracks one eye open to peer at Castiel questioningly, somehow unsurprised that he's being stared at wonderingly from six inches away, close enough that even in the cocooning dark of the bedroom he can see Cas's lips quirk faintly before he continues, his voice a murmur. "You asked. It works. It works best if you catch it before the headache, though."

"Figures." Cas arches an brow at that, and Dean shrugs, closing his eyes again and smirking. "Doctor recommended hangover cure when I don't need it and was banking on the distraction in the morning."

"We are not good at mornings. But we're both awake now. And I want. . ." Dean doesn't get much warning, just a tightening of Cas's arm around him, before he's suddenly on his back in the middle of the bed, Castiel's elbows planted into the mattress on either side of him, and his blunt chin resting on his folded hands on Dean's chest. Dean tenses instinctively, fight or flight instinct kicking in the moment he finds himself gently pinned, and Cas drops his head down, pressing a kiss against Dean's sternum through his t-shirt, trying to soothe him, and his words are a broken whisper. "Yesterday, I thought. . . I don't understand what I keep doing wrong, Dean. I just. . ."

And there he goes again, with the confused stare and the furrowed brow.

Dean rubs his eyes and then nudges Cas, and once again that's all the incentive Cas needs to let him go, to free him up. He's treating Dean like he's some sort of skittish colt, and Dean grits his teeth, following Cas through the motion until they're on the opposite end of the bed from where they started, using his body weight to essentially tackle Cas into the mattress, hands pinning Cas's wrists by his sides. Not that he needs to. Even in the dark room, Dean can see Cas's eyes widen, feel the Alpha's body go pliant under him, and considering this leaves Dean astride him, it's fairly obvious that he doesn't mind.

Dean resists the urge to grind down, to see how quickly he can snap Castiel's careful grip on control by teasing the stiffening erection beneath him. Bringing his face in close to Cas's, eyes narrowed, he isn't sure why they're whispering but he doesn't want to stop now. "You haven't done a damn thing wrong, Cas, except get tied up in my shit. . ."

"Did you ever consider that I don't mind being 'tied up in your shit,' Dean?" And okay. Maybe Dean shouldn't laugh at that, but it's Former-Priest-Cas and he still sounds awkward trying to parrot Dean's profanity back at him. More than that. . . Dean's got an Alpha letting himself be pinned by an Omega and saying anything at all about being tied up. That deserves a leer and a brow waggle, and he's pretty sure he just made Cas blush again and it's fucking awesome when he stammers. ". . . You know what I meant, Dean."

"Really I don't." Dean shrugs, smirking, but it's as if the laugh has decompressed him, chased away the anxiousness, and for the first time in days he feels like himself. "Because there's tied up. . ." Dean's fingers tighten around Cas's wrists, pressing them deeper into the mattress indicatively. "And then there's tied up. . ." Dean releases him and sits up smoothly, rocking back against Castiel's erection, drawing a surprised hiss from the Alpha beneath him. Cas's hands knot into the sheets to keep them down, keep them still, and Dean rolls against him again to test his resolve, shifting to focus the friction where he wants it. Castiel bites down on his own lower lip and his eyes slam shut as he braces his heels into the bed and drives up against Dean's jean-clad ass reflexively. And there are those instincts. Dean knew he could coax them out of Cas, even if Castiel is still desperately fisting his hands in the covers and trying not to take over.

He shouldn't be teasing. He shouldn't be undulating his hips slowly, riding the hard ridge of Castiel's trapped erection, letting himself become slick and hard and aching. He knows the friction has to border on pain for Castiel with this many layers of clothing between them and with how Dean's pressed back against him to keep him prone and restrained against the bed, but Cas's pupils are blown wide, his body reacting instinctively, and Dean doesn't stop. He doesn't want to stop. Dean shouldn't be contemplating taking it farther. . . But he is.

There's no sudden snap of arousal this time, nothing to ring the warning bells, to jolt him out of the moment. It's been building between them, sinking into his skin, and now it's sleepy entwined limbs and slow and sinuous movement and soft mattresses. It's Dean's tongue lapping against Castiel's bottom lip as he folds himself in half to encourage Cas to release it from the bruising pressure of his teeth, coaxing his mouth open for a kiss. It's how one of Castiel's hands now seems to hover at his waist, at his hip, desperate to touch him and afraid he'll stop if he does, but the other can cup his cheek and tilt his head to deepen the kiss without hesitation at all, until Dean changes rhythm unexpectedly and he breaks the kiss to drive his head back into the pillow, tilted back, unable to bite down on a moan.

"Please, Dean. . ." Cas's hoarse plea tastes beautiful, dragged from him with a slow grind, a teasing rotation of his hips that Dean knows would knot them, if Cas were buried inside of Dean now instead of rutting into the clothes between them. That should terrify the hell out of him, remind him of everything that's ever been done to him, of the fact that the only experiences he's had with Alphas have been bad experiences ultimately; degrading and humiliating and violent. But the noises he's wringing from Castiel sound like prayer, beautiful and worshipful, and there's raw need in his expression and awe in his stare. That's a kind of power Dean hasn't ever felt before and he's drunk on it now, kissing Castiel off-center, keeping his lips at the corner of Cas's mouth, dragging down the curve of his cheek to Cas's ear and staying close to ensure he doesn't miss any of it. "God, Dean. . ."

"What is it you want, Cas?" He knows now that Castiel hasn't done this before. Decades of celibacy, of denying himself physical release with another. . . and now he's trying desperately not to demand anything from Dean, to take whatever he's given without reaching for more. "You want to fuck me?" Dean has soaked through his jeans, wetter than he can ever recall being outside of his heats, and he knows Castiel can feel it now through the thin fabric of his slacks. Dean wishes he hadn't tipped them both into bed fully dressed when he got Cas home, or that Cas hadn't been so worried about being proper that he stayed that way when he climbed back in with him. He wants more, doesn't want the uncomfortable pull and slide of rough, wet fabric. "You want to knot me, Cas?"

Everything about Castiel at that point screams yes. . . except his mouth. His head nods unconsciously, his body bows beneath Dean's, feet finding purchase again so he can fuck upwards uselessly, his eyes slide shut in pleasure at the idea, and his hands grasp possessively at Dean's hips finally; but before Dean can flinch, before he can question his own wants, Castiel's mind and the voice contradict his body. "I want to taste you. . ."

And that is the single hottest fucking thing Dean Winchester has ever heard in his life; not a plea, or a prayer, or asking permission. Castiel wantsand Dean buries his face against Cas's neck to try and muffle the answering moan. Dean can have that, without fear or bad memories, but he shouldn't want it so badly, want Cas so badly that he doesn't even completely register that he's been displaced from his perch atop Castiel until his head hits the pillow, until Cas is tugging impatiently at his clothing, peeling Dean's t-shirt off over his head. "I want to see you, Dean. Please."

It's like he all at once gave Castiel permission to be demanding, to want and desire and take, and he lifts himself off the bed slightly to let Castiel peel his jeans and boxers off of him in one go. There's a moment of fear when Castiel shucks his own clothing impatiently and they're suddenly skin-to-skin, that Cas isn't going to stop himself, that he's going to try and slam Dean face-first into the mattress and just take what he wants and just use. That's all Dean is to an Alpha, after all, the old voice of self-loathing whispers inside his head—he's the universal fucktoy, a thing, an object with a sole purpose. Objects are used and put away.

Then a tongue is trailing along the vein of Dean's cock and he suddenly melts, short-circuited, the defensive fists he'd unconsciously been prepared to fight with go slack as he falls back onto the pillow in time for Castiel to kitten-lick the head of his cock, tasting the precum beading at the slit. It's not a porn-quality blow job; intellectually Dean knows that Cas has no real technique yet, but it's still better than anything Dean's ever had. Because this is more than some quick blow job in a cheap hotel under an assumed name. Because he isn't trying to keep his knees together so he doesn't give himself away with his arousal, or just get a condom to disguise his lack of a knot. Because Castiel's enthusiasm is unfeigned, and Dean isn't required to be anything other than himself.

Cas chases the taste of Dean's slick across his skin to its source without shame or hesitation and drags his tongue across Dean's hole, and Deanshould be ashamed, because he's not entirely certain any more what noises are coming out of his mouth. He finds himself spreading wider, wanton and uncaring as Cas devotes himself to trying to find out what makes Dean moan his name, what makes him buck off of the bed, and eventually lands on sliding two fingers into Dean, pumping them slowly while hollowing his cheeks around Dean's cock and sucking, his thumb rubbing circles against Dean's perineum. He can't hold it in any longer, can't hold back, and it's complete lack of control, surrender of it, and he attempts to twist away from the sensation even as he helplessly reaches for it, fingers knotting into Castiel's hair as he spills into his mouth, clenching down around his fingers and crying out wordlessly before slumping back into the bed, boneless.

Castiel could ask pretty much anything out of him in that moment, and Dean wouldn't even think to say no. He can feel the hard press of Castiel's cock against his stomach as he pulls Dean back into his arms, and he's sated and spent and emotionally drained, but it takes Cas locking his arms around Dean's back, keeping him still, for Dean to stop trying to turn away, to present himself the way everything tells him an Omega is supposed to, to let Castiel have him. "Dean. . . no. No, please just. . ."

Cas tugs him closer, but not for his own relief as he directs Dean's head onto his shoulder, pressing a gentle kiss to Dean's temple as his hands stroke over Dean's back, his sides, his hair, and it's not until Dean feels the tears dripping from his chin to the arm locked around him that he understands he's crying.

Cas presses his lips over Dean's eyelids in turn, against his cheekbone, lips to the hinge of his jaw to remove the evidence of Dean's silent breakdown. ". . .Just stay. Just be here in the morning. Please."

xXx

The dawn is gray and muted, a dim, dismal thing, and Dean is sprawled across Castiel's bed, his head resting on his arm, one leg bent at the knee and the air conditioning cold against his bare skin as he stares blankly up at the popcorn ceiling, letting his eyes find nonexistent shapes and patterns in the texture. He woke lazily, as if he hadn't quite decided on consciousness, and he's not used to that. It's the second day in a row his sleep was unaided by alcohol but uninterrupted by nightmares.

It was certainly interrupted, though.

And his mind doesn't want to wrap around that entirely.

He could hear Castiel moving in the living area earlier, but now there's silence through the open bedroom door, and somehow he knows if he raised his head he'd be staring right back at Castiel. "Feelin' a little overexposed already, without the gawking."

"Do you have any idea what you look like right now, like that?" Castiel is shaking his head as he finally breaks out of his trance and walks into the room, and the bed dips as he perches on the edge. Dean can hear the sound of Cas setting coffee mugs down on the nightstand, but he doesn't turn to put Cas in his peripheral view as he continues staring at the ceiling.

"You really want me to guess, Cas? Because I'm thinking opinions are gonna vary here."

"Renaissance painters would beg to have you just like that before them. It makes me wish I had a single artistic bone in my body. But you're not covering up, and you must know how beautiful you are, so I assume you're not talking about physical exposure."

Dean squints, trying to pick apart Castiel's words, looking for mockery. . . and he's pretty sure he'd be better off with Cas making fun of him than meaning all that flowery shit seriously. "How much of all what we did last night was new for you, Cas?"

Castiel stretches out beside him on the bed, elbow braced and head propped on his fist, looking down at Dean, and now Dean can see him there. At some point he tugged boxers on. . . probably in case someone decided to press their nose to his window like Dean did yesterday. . . but otherwise there's a lot of bare skin on display that the world would be better off not knowing their priests had under their frumpy robes. No one would be able to keep pure thoughts. Even in this state, Dean can't help but let his head roll to the side, taking in the view. He'd been a little distracted last night from enjoying the sights.

"Everything but the kissing. Was I. . .?" Color creeps across Castiel's cheeks along with his sudden uncertainty. "I mean, you seemed to enjoy it."

Dean rolls his eyes, reaches across the bed, and punches Cas in the shoulder, rocking him in his place and knocking his elbow out from underneath him. "You were fucking amazing, don't get off topic." Cas smiles to himself, ducking his head into the pillow beneath him for a moment, before raising back up onto his propped position and schooling himself back into his attentive-listening expression. "The point is the entire breaking down like a fucking pansy bawling shit? That's not normal."

"As I recall, I spent yesterday afternoon and evening crying into a bottle of whisky in the back of a church until you found me." Castiel points out dryly, and Dean rolls his eyes, and he folds his other arm behind his head as well now.

"You had a really shitty day, Cas, through no fault of your own."

Castiel plants a hand on the bed beside Dean, leaning over him, and there's nowhere to escape the scrutiny on him now, intelligent blue eyes that know too much. "Dean, even in the very short time I have known you, I think it's more than fair to say you've had several. . . very 'shitty' no fault of your own. And I get the distinct feeling that this past week has not been anomalous of your life experiences. Again, through no fault of your own."

"You don't know that." Dean bites out bitterly, and he'd sit up and move away except he'd knock heads with Cas doing so at this point, and the Alpha doesn't seem to have any intentions of moving out of the way. "Dude, you've got a fucking romanticized idea of me being some. . . some. . . I'm just a highschool dropout, a fuckup nut-job with. . ."

It's hard to insult himself with Castiel's tongue in his mouth. Which is probably why Cas kissed him. He kisses him to breathlessness, slow and deep but without the need to drive it into being anything more than a kiss. As much as last night was a new experience in some ways, this is too: because who the fuck kisses without it being about sex, about getting into someone's (currently metaphorical) pants?

Cas, apparently. And he's good at it. It's easy to lose track of time, and of his train of thought, with Cas apparently just basking in the intimacy of mapping out Dean's mouth beneath his, trying to pour himself into Dean's soul through the press of his lips and teasing of his tongue.

When they break for breath, Cas rests his forehead against Dean's, eyes closed, and traces his fingertips across Dean's slack lips. "I would punchyou in the shoulder for questioning yourself, but I like that better."

Dean's pretty sure he manages a vowel sound or two, and he can feel Cas smile against his skin as he rests his head on Dean's chest, and that's a pretty fucking amazing thing too, feeling Cas smile. It doesn't last long though. Something seems to settle over Cas, weighty and melancholy, and he rolls onto his back, mirroring Dean on the bed, staring at the motionless ceiling fan. "Do remember before you speak ill of yourself that you're talking to a disgraced priest, dishonorably discharged soldier, and now potentially unemployed doctor." Cas drags a hand down his face, resting his palm over his eyes, and continues. "And worse, too. But I. . ." He shakes his head slightly, and hitches a breath. "I am getting 'off topic.' The point remains that last night was none of that. This is about you being ashamed of being an Omega."

Dean grimaces and closes his eyes, offering no answer.

"That attack. It wasn't the first time." Dean's silence acts as confirmation for what Castiel already knows, and he inches across the bed to Dean, carefully slipping his arm beneath Dean's head, a loose facsimile of a prone embrace.

"Don't want to talk about it, Cas." Dean finally growls, low and forbidding, and Castiel sighs quietly and pulls Dean closer, wrapping him in tighter now that he knows Dean won't fight him on the nearness.

"That seems. . . fair. I'm not exactly disclosing every dark moment of my life, either. Though I think for you. . . I think I would, if you needed me to. But I just wish. . . Dean, there is no shame to how you were born. Nothing that they wrote on your car, none of the things they've said to you or called you over the years defines you. You are a miracle, Dean."

Last night, laughter had been a balm, healing: this time, the bitter scoff, the low, scornful laugh, is anything but. "First time anyone's ever called me that before."

"That doesn't make it any less true." Castiel bites back sharply, before forcing himself to calm. He can't attack pain, no matter how much it feels as if he is stepping into the middle of an ongoing internal battle: it doesn't work that way. People see a priest, a chaplain, and they see the robes and the rituals. He has never had a parish per say, has never been that kind of priest. The truth is, more often than not, he was just a listening ear to people, regardless of their denomination, in the worst of places, deployed, away from their families for years at a time, caught in a war and surrounded by violence and doubt and death.

Trailing his hand up and down Dean's spine, slow and soothing, he waits until Dean relaxes against him. And then he waits longer, tracing fingers along his skin in patterns and shapes while Dean returns the favor, learning the nobs of his spine with curious fingertips, and it feels right, slow and intimate and lazy, and he wishes they never had to leave the bed. Wishes Dean could forget what's ahead of him for longer. He gets the feeling that Dean has never really let himself be held before, and any moment he could remember that he 'shouldn't' want that. "I told you already that I was drawn to your strength, your character. And being an Omega. . . that doesn't change that, Dean. Perhaps it makes you even more remarkable."

He has no idea if Dean is even listening, but he hopes he is. Dean is slowly laving his neck with his tongue and lips now, gentle bites and low, sucking kisses that may or may not leave marks. Castiel wouldn't be ashamed if they did. He has no particular reason to hide this relationship, and any marks. . . they are something that will stay, even if Dean disappears on him again in moments. Some sign that this was real. Closing his eyes and baring his neck to Dean feels entirely natural, and old-fashioned ideals be damned.

"The idea that there's something shameful about intersexuality is. . .is ludicrous, Dean. Humanity is not the first species for this to occur in: to call it unnatural is to ignore nature. It is a miracle, a blessing. You are the epitome of life-giving, with hermaphroditic qualities that . . ." With a sudden push of his greater mass and strength, Dean claps a hand over Castiel's mouth, muffling his words into silence and rolling him onto his back, pinning him once more to the mattress.

Both dark eyebrows raise at that reaction and while there's a question in Cas's eyes there's also a considerable amount of humor in the face of Dean's immediate chastising flick of Cas's nose once he's quiet. He can accept ridiculousness more than he can self-loathing, and he has seen Dean fall back on a joke already more than once. This is good. This is progress. "Okay. Doctor talk? Officially not as sexy as Priest talk. Blending them? Frikkin' terrifying. Do me a favor and never medically describe me to me."

Behind Dean's hand, Castiel laughs quietly and waits for permission to speak, settling back into the pillows and offering the bare quirk of his lips, a shy smile.

"You find the 'priest talk' . . .sexy?"

"I. . . a little?" He's curled up in bed with a priest, if Cas's drunken rambling last night was right. Maybe not a real one any more, but. . . Dean groans, and faceplants onto the pillow next to Cas, and his voice is muffled. "I'm going to hell."

"Doubtful." Cas remarks calmly, and putting his back to the headboard, stretching his legs out before him and crossing them at the ankle, he retrieves his coffee at last. There's one more thing he needs to know, one more fear he's clinging to after the last few days that he can't brush aside, and his heart's in his throat even asking this, knowing how much of an inexperienced idiot he must sound. "Dean. . . We're. . . something, right? Us, you and me? This is something. Last night meant. . . a great deal to me, and I understand if it doesn't mean the same to you, but. . ."

Dean is going to have to leave soon. John Winchester's funeral, his familial obligations, even fixing his car. . .these are all things that intellectually Castiel knows will demand Dean's time for the rest of the time he is in Lawrence. And then he will leave. They were, from the start, never going to be anything longer than that. Even if everything had gone smoothly from the moment Dean left him captivated at the bar, they would have had a definitive expiration date. Castiel knows he's been a fool for hoping for something else.

"This just a ploy to get me back in bed with you later, Cas, so you can actually get off yourself next time?" Dean asks in a slow, teasing drawl. He raises his head just in time to see Cas's face fall, before the expression is hidden as he takes a gulp of his coffee and assumes a carefully controlled expression, and even then he falls into looking away from Dean. Especially after knowing Dean's fears, knowing how Dean has been abused, the quip makes him cringe to be thought of that way. He wants Dean. It had been hard enough holding back last night, but it was worthit, he will cherish every minute. And he thought he'd made some headway, thought he had helped. Thought maybe Dean might trust him a little.

"I told you there were no obligations of. . . of 'returned favors,' Dean." Cas sighs, moving to drop his feet to the floor and preparing to stand from the bed. Dean's hand catches his wrist, keeps him from pushing up, and rather than pull Cas and his coffee back down onto the bed, Dean rolls upright and joins him at the edge, blinking in surprise. "Cas?"

"I should let you get dressed. You have things to do today, and I. . ." Have absolutely nothing to do today. No bus to catch. No consults to give. No work to go to. ". . . I should let you get back to your family. I'm sorry that I worried you yesterday. And. . . and thank you, for last night. And for this morning."

That was the single most dejected perfectly pitched to be polite and unassuming bullshit Dean has ever heard in his life. With a sigh, Dean drops his chin onto Cas's shoulder from behind and closes his eyes, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. "Cas, just. . . just shut up and get some clothes on. We're going to breakfast. And if at the end of the day you still want anything to do with me, we'll talk."

They'd talk anyway. Dean doesn't know what the hell is going on here between them, but it's. . . new. And Cas has more than earned this much. Leaving the thunderstruck Alpha on the bed, staring questions at his back, he collects his phone from the nightstand and turns to face Cas, reaching out and catching his hand in his, wrapping his fingers around the phone with his lip caught between his teeth. There's no way this is coming off as nonchalant. "And could you program your number in my phone while you're at it? I. . . uh. I lost your number."


	6. Chapter 6

"Cheapass hotel doesn't even have the waffle iron thing. . ."

"Isn't the continental breakfast intended for guests of the hotel only?" Castiel's whisper is nervous and carrying. Leaned in close to Dean's side, his eyes dart to the front desk like the guy there watching soaps is going to yell "stop thief" any moment and rally a mob with torches and pitchforks. Turning his head, Dean can't quite help but grin at how frikkin' hilarious it is that Castiel is apparently so damned rule-abiding that this is scandalous to him.

Particularly since from what little Dean knows of Cas's history, he knows he's blown off nearly every rule put in front of him, professionally speaking.

Taking the plastic scoop out of Castiel's hand, he finishes its halted journey into the fruit salad, and gives Cas his first generous scoop of morally questionable food. "Just enjoy your illicit cantaloupe, Cas. I promise if you get arrested for it, I'll bail you out."

"Isn't that technically my job? And you're assuming you wouldn't be arrested too." Sam Winchester is not what Cas expected. When he turns to take in Dean's younger brother for the first time, his eyes are on his nose and travel up from there. The brief description he received in the car trip over was that Sam was a lawyer in California, a genius, and clearly loved by Dean, who looked so proud to tell him these things. He warned that he might be 'a bit' protective, a statement offered with an eye roll and no shortage of exasperation. That his girlfriend would be with them, and it would likely be safe to assume that he was equally as protective of her given that she is recently pregnant. And then they were there, Dean's heavy foot on the accelerator and the short trip from the apartment to the hotel making further explanation impossible.

And now he is being cautiously examined by a giant.

"I wouldn't be arrested. I'm pretty damn sure I could outrun that guy. Few too many of the hotel Krispy Kreme, y'know?" Dean smirks, and then as if tempted by his own joke piles a few of the same donuts onto his own plate, foregoing the fruit and completely belying his criticism of anyone'sdiet. "Sam, Cas. Cas, Sam." He gestures a hand negligently between the two of them, the entirety of his introduction made, and darts a glance at Cas.

And then drops a donut on Castiel's plate too.

Castiel knows that this is significant. He's meeting Dean's family, and even without any particular relationship experience himself he knows that this is something he does not want to mess up.

"Hello, Sam." He eventually settles on, his grip on the paper plate of stolen food in his hands making offering his hand awkward and delayed. Sam's grip is just shy of painful, hazel eyes narrowed slightly, and Cas can see something of Dean in them. Not just the muddy greenish undertone, but the wary, cautious way the younger Winchester takes him in. It makes him wonder how Sam has been hurt, given he knows now how much of Dean's own caution is born of past experiences.

"Hi. Sorry, I didn't know Dean was bringing anyone with him. . . "There's a question there, for one or the other of them, but Dean turns slightly and shoots his brother an amused look asking if the man who brought his pregnant girlfriend across the country with him without warning wasreally going to try and use that line. The bitchface Sam gives him in return is frikkin' awe inspiring, and Dean smirks. Won that one.

Castiel resists the urge to shuffle nervously. He had not envisioned being a deliberate point of contention between the brothers immediately, and while he is not part of this silent conversation between them, he is not entirely oblivious to it.

"Cas was Dad's doctor." Dean eventually gives Sam, and it's an incomplete and entirely impersonal description of his role for Sam and for the uncertain Cas, who is desperately attempting to figure out how to represent himself to Sam. His role is not something that he and Dean had the opportunity to discuss in their brief trip. It is also a reminder of the hospital, and that makes Cas wince.

"I'm sorry that we were unable to do more for him." No, that's a hospital line. That is the professionally sympathetic doctor giving bad news. Cas grimaces, floundering for a second in awkwardness, before Sam takes pity on him and rests a broad hand on his shoulder, face softening into sympathetic lines that. . . it's their loss, he is not attempting to garner sympathy that he lost a patient, particularly not when that patient was theirfather.

"I'm sure you guys did everything you could." There's still something wary in Sam's eyes, as he falls into the buffet line beside Castiel and takes up the scoop for the sliced fruit. "Is 'Cas,' short for something, Doctor. . .?" And now he has Sam using his title, confusing the situation further.

"Castiel Novak." Cas has the distinct feeling that anything short of his full name would be met with suspicion, and that the use of his full name may result in unofficial background checks on him. A suspicion confirmed when the next question is a too-casual "Huh. I don't remember you from around here growing up. Where you from?"

"Illinois." He's being interrogated, politely, but Dean looks back to him at his stilted, answers-only response and quirks a faint grin at him, clearly taking amusement in what Castiel knows must look like awkward, panicked fumbling. Eventually, he too takes pity on Cas and breaks off his game momentarily, rolling his eyes and reaching out to tug at the sleeve of Cas's shirt, directing him to a table.

"Where's Jess?" Dean asks, and he pulls out one of the four chairs around the table, sitting himself next to Castiel. Sam draws the opposite chair out, which will leave Cas under Sam's direct scrutiny the entire meal. Dean, conversely, is completely comfortable, dropping an elbow onto the table and picking up his donut, seeming to cram half of it into his mouth at once.

"Morning sickness. She's, uh. Not exactly cheerful right now. I'm supposed to get her something that won't mess up her stomach on my way back up. . ."

Castiel is morbidly fascinated by Dean's eating habits. And then just fascinated, when the demonstration ends with him deliberately licking misplaced glaze off of his lips and fingertips in a manner that can only be deliberately lascivious, as he meets Cas's eyes the entire time.

Cas shifts in his chair uncomfortably, tears his eyes away to resist the urge to taste the sugar on Dean's tongue, and finds Sam staring at him with an expression that leaves little doubt that he has figured out exactly where Castiel's mind is at the moment. Swallowing his bite of fruit becomes inexplicably difficult, and Cas drops his fork.

"I. . . I should get us coffee. Do you want coffee, Dean? Sam?"  
His words are tripping over each other, and Dean rests his chin on his fist and grins, actually grins, and it does amazing things for him, that joy on his face even at Cas's expense, and that is complicating matters further and he's fairly certain that the temperature in the room rose ten degrees in the last thirty seconds and. . .

When Dean's other hand lands high on his thigh beneath the table, squeezing in a manner that may or may not be intended to be reassuring, it only gets worse. The motel table rocks as Castiel pushes away from it, muttering under his breath about coffee in a desperate attempt not to make a fool of himself in front of Dean's family, and Dean watches him flee with laughter in his eyes.

"Wow. So, I didn't think people actually could blush like that outside of cartoons." Sam draws Dean's attention back to him, and his brother shrugs one shoulder, leering.

"Adorable, innit? Gotta say, I kinda like making him squirm." Sam was willing to let it pass, just hold off on commentary, but he knows Dean too well to buy this at face value. Dean's putting on a front, even with himself: he's never that casual, and here he is playing the shameless Omega, a stereotype he hates. "Seriously, Dean? What are you trying to prove here?"

All of the laughter drains out of Dean's eyes in moments, and he stares back at his brother flatly across the table, tearing his next donut in half between his sticky fingers and pausing before taking another bite. "The fuck do you think I think I need to prove, Sam?"

". . . That sentence doesn't even make sense." Sam folds his arms, leaving his too-healthy breakfast food crap untouched for the time being. He's trying to be supportive, trying to take care of his elder brother, and all it's doing is making Dean more defensive, no matter how earnest his attempts. "Dean, you just got back here. You can't have known this guy for more than . . . what, four days? You don't need to go out and just. . . pick up the first Alpha who looks at you and be. . ." He waves a hand at Dean, who seems to slouch farther into his chair in response. "Dad died, and now you're back here, and I get that brought up a lot of messed up things . . ."

"I'm handling it, Sam. I'm fine."

"No, you're not! Neither of us is fine, can you just stop saying that!" Any casual observer could see the family resemblance in them now, the stubborn sets of their jaws, the identical closed-off postures, the furrow creasing between their brows. "Dad's dead, Dean. . ."

"Thanks for pointing it out, Sam, I almost forgot that." Dean's sarcasm is sharp enough to cut, his voice dropping lower, an unconscious attempt to out-bass his brother. "What the fuck does that have to do with me bringing Cas here? He's a good guy. . ."

"You don't even know him, Dean." Sam's exasperated voice is pitched to keep Cas from noticing their fight, and he rakes a hand through his too-long hair, shoving it out of his face and trying to reach his brother, driving them back on topic. "Dad's dead and what he said to you . . ."

"Drop it, Sam." There's something cold and forbidding to Dean's words, his brother's name clipped off and icy.

"I can't. I'm worried about you, and you. . . Dean, you frikkin' idolized Dad, you took his shit a lot longer than you should have, and I know it messed you up, and now there's no way for him to make it right. Look, if I'm wrong, if you're finally moving on from the drunken shit Dad said and whatever Alastair did to you. . ."

"I said drop it." The chair scrapes across the tile, his voice is a whipcrack of command, and every eye in the motel lobby is drawn to Dean where he stands. A few feet away from the table with three cups of coffee and a plate balanced on a plastic tray, Castiel stops in his tracks, blue eyes widening as Dean's gaze falls on him. The elder Winchester tears his eyes away from the concern he sees there, on to the curiosity of everyone else, and Sam's naked worry. He's trapped, stared at, a freak, and he can't stay there, can't wait until people start talking behind his back, he needs to move. "I need some air."

"Dean. . ." Cas turns in place as Dean stalks by him without stopping or looking at him, and only Sam's hand on his shoulder keeps Cas from following after him.

"Just. . . give him a couple minutes." Sam sounds exhausted suddenly, old beyond his years, and he settles heavily back into his chair with his long legs awkwardly folded to the side, fingers pressed over his eyes. Castiel sets the tray down on the table and frowns at the door out into the parking lot, where he can see Dean take a seat on the concrete bench beside the front door of the hotel. He moves his chair to the left before sitting, so that he can see Dean even seated, before turning his eyes to Sam. This should make him more awkward. They've just fought, and now he is left alone with Dean's brother. . . but his nervousness has abated, replaced by something else entirely. Strained social conversations he apparently can't handle. Conflict he knows, though.

"What just happened?"

"I screwed up and just blew any chance of getting Dean to talk by pushing when I should have waited." Sam admits forlornly, staring down at his food, and Castiel observes that the Winchesters also look alike when they're blaming themselves for things. Canting his head to the side, he tries to get a read on Dean's brother. "Look, Doctor Novak. . ."

"Castiel. . . or Cas." He'll gladly embrace Dean's nickname for him, and given the circumstances he can't stomach being called by another honorific. Especially another one that may no longer be valid come his disciplinary hearing. Wrapping his hand around one of the cups on the tray, he takes a sip and grimaces at the terrible motel brew, wondering if it's still worth it to bring Dean a coffee in a moment, considering they've both already had a mug at Cas's.

"Castiel, then." Sam raises his head, and if Castiel hadn't been in far more threatening situations in his life, he might be intimidated by the look being leveled at him. As it is, he can recognize the protectiveness for what it is, and he doesn't react. Dean had warned him of this, after all. "Look. It's obvious that you and my brother are screwing around, or you're leading up to it. If you're just sniffing around my brother just to be able to bag some Omega . . . move on now. I'm not going to stand by and watch you fuck him over. He's been through enough."

"I'd gathered that." Castiel answers quietly, eyes darting back to take in the stiff set of Dean's shoulders as he stares out at the street blankly. "He told me. . ."

"He didn't tell you anything." Sam counters immediately, harsh and rough and completely certain. He knows Dean, better than anyone. He loves his brother. But he has a realistic expectation of the likelihood that Dean was spilling all of his deepest darkest secrets to a guy he met days ago. He points at Dean's abandoned chair indicatively. "That? That's the only reaction I've gotten out of him in five years of trying to talk to him about what really happened. Whatever you think you know. . ."

"I already know he was assaulted." Castiel's brow is furrowed, and he wonders if he's in the wrong to speak about this with Sam. Dean hasn'tactively spoken to him about this. . . from the sounds of it, he might never. This topic has Castiel unsettled, concerned and angry: there was no way for him to have known Dean, to have been able to protect him then, but he still wishes he could have done something, anything to prevent it. "On the day your father died, several of what I gather were his previous assailants attacked him in the parking lot."

Sam curses sharply, and Castiel is now glad his anger isn't aimed at him. "We should have killed those assholes." That was the last damn thing Dean needed, especially on the day his dad died. "You were the person who helped him out with that?" Castiel doesn't answer aloud, but he doesn't need to. He picks at the donut Dean put on his plate, the careless fingerprints Dean left in the icing, keeping Dean in his view. It's not that he's afraid he'll be left somewhere. He could get home from here, busses are departing from hotels all the time, but he doesn't want Dean leaving him again after this. He doesn't want to wait for a phone call that might never come. Their day just started, and he wishes they could be back in bed together, that nothing had happened to tear away the fragile contentment he'd had just holding Dean.

Watching Castiel thoughtfully as the quiet, dark-haired doctor goes from frowning at his breakfast to fixed staring at Dean's back, Sam proceeds slowly. He doesn't know what to think of this guy yet, but he's starting to think. . . maybe only part of what he'd seen from Dean was an act. Dean wasn't above fucking with Sam's expectations, either, making him uncomfortable or turning around and reminding Sam that while he may be the Alpha and the 'bigger' brother technically, he's still the younger brother and should be made uncomfortable recreationally. If this guy who stutters and blushes and stares and seems to be completely the opposite of Dean's usual 'type,' even beyond being an Alpha, was someone Dean was actually considering being in a relationship with. . . then what he got in return from his brother was a pretty cold reminder of probably theworst memory he could bring up at that time. He can't undo it, can't change history and can't yank back having brought it up, but if that's something Dean's finally reaching for, he needs to know that Castiel isn't going to bolt at the first sign of trouble. "Dean was just a kid. . . much as he's ever been allowed to be a kid I guess. I was still too young to really get what was happening yet, and it . . . it was bad."

Castiel had figured that much out for himself. He's trying not to speculate too much as to what that entails. Dean will tell him when he's ready. Hehopes Dean will tell him when he's ready. He hopes that this, with Dean, lasts long enough for trust to grow. He has the distinct feeling though that Dean wouldn't be happy with he and Sam sitting around discussing his welfare over breakfast without him, two Alphas working out their plan for an Omega like a child or like property, so he's determined to stay silent.

". . . But bad as that was, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about him going missing for four months, Castiel." Castiel's head snaps up, eyes widening, and Sam isn't lying to him, isn't making this up. "Four months of not knowing if my brother was alive, or dead in a ditch somewhere. Four months, a couple years back, where I still don't know all of what the hell he was put through." And what he did know, he wasn't sharing. He doesn't know this guy and the Wincherter Family secrets are deeply ingrained and fiercely protected by both of John's sons."So yeah, you seem like a decent guy, and whatever happened at the hospital I'm glad you were there. But he's my brother and I've almost lost him before. If you hurt him in any way . . ." The threat is implicit, and Castiel can understand it completely, empathize entirely. "I can't do that again."

Tucking his chin down, Castiel closes his eyes for a moment, trying to process what he now knows, trying not to allow his mind to spin horror stories when he realizes that he knows nothing. Nothing but the bare details, and how broken Dean had seemed the night before, how tentative everything has been between them.

Taking a deep breath, Castiel gathers himself, assembles his professional mask behind closed eyelids and allows it to school his face, and then gestures with two fingers off of his coffee mug at the plate on the tray in the center of the table. "That is for Jessica. Nothing on that plate should further agitate her morning sickness, and will suffice for nutrients for herself and the baby. I should go join Dean, and find out what we are doing for the day and where I'm needed." Raising his head, Castiel meets Sam's eyes evenly, unflinching: he has just included himself in their family events for the day, and short of Dean asking him to leave he intends to stay. Dean's faintly bitter, glib remark about speaking later in the day if Castiel still 'wanted anything to do with him' is fair indication that he expects exposure to his life and his family and his problems to dissuade Castiel from his interest.

Castiel isn't going anywhere. He's embarrassed to admit how much he is already affected by Dean Winchester. And he cannot let knowing more change anything about that: Dean is still Dean.

Sam blinks first, breaking the unconscious staring contest growing between them by nodding, once. "I'll. . . uh. I'll bring Jess her breakfast. Thanks, for that." When he's not angry or posturing defensively, Sam seems an entirely different person. It's easier to forget how large he is when he's hunched over in the chair, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, and apparently afraid to go face the wrath of his pregnant fiancée when she's ill and uncomfortable. "Let you know how it goes over in a couple of minutes."

"We'll pray for your safe return." Castiel's quiet, deadpan joke makes Sam blink, turning back to Cas as if trying to figure out if he's serious or not, before he huffs a reluctant laugh.

"Yeah, okay then. I'll. . . I hope everything goes okay for you with Dean, then."

As Sam slouches away food in hand towards the elevator, Castiel gathers up two of the coffee cups, and a few packets of sugar in case the jet-fuel quality of the coffee is going to dissuade Dean from drinking it. . . and then with a nervous glance at the front desk, he combines the fruit on his plate and the donuts on Dean's, and covers it with another paper plate. Castiel tries his best to look nonchalant, and as if he has every right to be eating their food as he walks towards the rotating front door, feeling the stare of the clerk on his back prickling between his shoulder blades the entire time. It takes using his chin on the plastic lid of the coffee cup to keep everything balanced, and by the time he startles Dean on the bench, he needs the help Dean offers, jumping up and taking the cups out of his hands before they topple.

"You didn't finish your breakfast." He offers as explanation and excuse for his theft, and after a long moment staring at Cas, Dean barks a laugh, setting the coffees and plate between them on the bench, taking the offering from Cas's hands as he sits beside him. "We'd already taken it, and I . . ."

"'Waste not, want not?'" Dean parrots Castiel's drunken words back at him teasingly, and Castiel watches with wonder as the dead look leaves his eyes, as Dean carefully drags himself out of whatever memory had leeched the light out of him. He still looks sad, still grieving, but so strong, so determined. Dean is not a victim putting on a brave face, he is a man building himself into what he wants to be, reconstructing himself in the aftermath of every tragic and horrific experience of his life. "Look at you, Cas. Turning into a hardened breakfast-stealing crime lord right before my eyes. . ."

The suddenness of Castiel's kiss startles Dean, cuts his words off mid-breath as Cas leans across the food between them and presses his lips to Dean's. Castiel doesn't pull away at the first sign of tension and fear the way he has in the past; it lasts only a few moments, and then Dean is kissing him back, knotting fingers into the longer hair at the crown of Cas's head and taking control, keeping him bowed over the barrier of food and coffee between them. Dean determines when Cas is allowed to pull back, tugs to keep him from pressing closer, and Castiel lets him for now. If he will take what Dean is willing to give him, he knows that Dean will give him more in time once he has proven his own trustworthiness.

A hollered "Get a room!" from the parking lot is met with a middle finger from Dean, and his tongue curling against Cas's palate, sweet as the glaze of their stolen donut, but an unsubtle cough from behind them breaks Dean's attention finally. Sam, with Jessica tucked against his side, raises an eyebrow at his brother as he breaks the kiss with a wet pop, and Cas resists the urge to strain against the hand in his hair and settles back onto the bench, as both of them turn to look at the younger Winchester and his bride-to-be. Hand sliding to the back of Cas's neck, Dean's staring at him in clear challenge, daring him to say another damned thing about his older brother's behavior, but Sam doesn't rise to the bait.

"We going to Ellen's first, or. . .?"

It's a small triumph, but Dean will take it.


	7. Chapter 7

Ellen Harvelle is strangely intimidating to Castiel in a manner Sam Winchester was not.

Castiel's life has been threatened in a few imaginative ways at this point, as if every person who loves Dean feels that the best way to secure his happiness is to subtly or not-so-subtly offer to inflict bodily harm on anyone who might be a danger to it. Sam was by far the most earnest about it, and Jo the most overt (Castiel sees no legitimate reason she would have for flipping a knife open and closed and staring at him), but Ellen Harvelle finishes the polite introduction with Castiel, briskly awakens the mulletted man asleep on her pool table and hands him a slip of paper, and then thirty minutes later she ducks behind the bar at her employee's call, and when she returns she knows him.

They're all still gathered around Jess within the empty pub, welcoming her to their small family, attempting to distract themselves from the upcoming memorial with talk about weddings and baby names and showers and events, when Ellen turns to Castiel and asks how old a child should be for baptism. When he blinks and answers by instinct and by rote, she smiles at him and continues on the conversation without allowing time for anyone to register what happened, or to notice that anything was strange about it. When she hands him a glass of water, she addresses him as 'doctor,' without his profession ever being mentioned in their conversation.

It's subtle and quietly terrifying. An Alpha male had made it absolutely clear that if he hurt Dean he would suffer for it, and he didn't flinch. But a Beta female with a mile-wide maternal streak did a few internet searches, and now Castiel is nervous and unsettled.

Brothers he understands: he has an abundance of them. Mothers are frightening, and he has no experience to prepare him for this. Ellen smiles at him again and that smile is a warning. Castiel straightens on his stool and attempts to look harmless and innocent-minded.

It's harder than it should be. Dean has a hand on his knee, his thumb rubbing circles idly against the joint, and while it's far from sexual every touch, every casual nudge, every time their shoulders brush as they sit beside each other seems to be gathering electricity between them, a static charge and potential energy that is building to something dangerous and explosive. He's too sensitive to it, too aware of Dean, but when he rests his hand over Dean's to still the movement and draws Dean's eyes to him, it's clear that he's not the only one effected.

He put that spark of lust into Dean's eyes, and Dean's interest is a heady drug. One unconscious swipe of Dean's tongue across his lips is enough to derail Castiel's train of thought entirely. One look across this bar had been enough to break him out of his self-imposed isolationism. One kiss was enough to fuse them together, to send them crashing to the walls trying to somehow get closer to each other. It's not just that he wantsDean; that alone would have been unusual from him, given how long he has gone without feeling much sexual attraction to anyone. It's the possessive need to keep him, to claim him, to wrap himself around his mate and snarl at anything that tries to hurt him again. It's the desperate desire to make him laugh again, and chase away the dark thoughts that seem to seep into him regularly, from what Castiel has witnessed.

He's fallen too quickly. Feels too much. This is dangerous, rewriting his instincts and motives, and he doesn't know if he can have this. He doesn't know if Dean wants it, either, wants anything more from him. The uncertainty and impermanence are making him anxious, and it's already enough of an awkward situation that he's reeling.

When the Harvelle women and Winchester boys fall into a quieter discussion regarding John's memorial, and whether or not Ellen and Jo should close the Roadhouse for the evening to attend, Castiel takes advantage of the shift in focus to regroup. He is not really a part of this discussion, not a part of this family, and as he slips off his stool and turns away he notices Jessica hanging back from the conversation as well. It's with dual purpose that he quietly pulls a chair out for her at the nearest table and touches her elbow to draw her attention, gesturing at the seat. Jessica's thankful smile is beautiful, warm, and she slides off of the stool beside Sam with a grimace, hand to her lower back. "Thanks, Castiel. A month ago, wouldn't have bothered me at all. Now I'm pretty much terrified of what the third trimester's going to be like. Sit with me?"

Cas can feel Sam's eyes move from Jessica to fall on him, and he smiles at the blonde quietly. "Gladly." He's not asking for permission when he looks to Sam, but he takes long enough in pouring her a glass of water from the pitcher on the bar that if the younger Winchester had a problem with Castiel being alone near his pregnant fiancée, he could find an excuse to stop him. Dean had said he was protective, and one conversation with Sam about Dean is enough to prove that true; Castiel just doesn't know him well enough to know if he's the territorial type as well. He'd never have thought to wonder about it before: not only because only the truly insecure considered a celibate priest a threat to their relationship, but because he's never felt anything like that himself before Dean. He refuses to let himself become ruled by it, not merely because he thinks Dean would become skittish at possessiveness, but because he refuses to allow his rational mind to be overrun and ruled by base instinct.

After a moment, Sam flicks his eyes at from the glass of water to Cas's face, and then turns back to Dean and his conversation. Castiel takes his seat, and they're the only two in the bar to notice the moment. It's heartening, overall, though Castiel wouldn't ever be able to explain why, but it also raises his opinion of Sam to know despite his well-intentioned threats, he's clearly rational as well.

"So. . ." Jessica lowers her voice, wrapping her delicate hands around the glass of water and leaning across the table towards Cas, and there's mischief and light in her eyes, an irrepressible brightness to her spirit that is infectious. Castiel's saddened that it has to be surrounded and muted by all this talk of death. "I feel like I should be apologizing to you or something. Because it's bad enough we're doing the 'meet the family' rounds at the worst possible time, but we're doing it at the same time. . ." she pats his hand consolingly. ". . .and I'm sorry to say so far I'm clearlywinning. It's hard to trump a baby bump."

Castiel huffs a silent laugh, and tips his head in agreement, letting the vivacious blonde draw a slight smile from him. "You should put that on a t-shirt."

"You know what, maybe I will." There's a laugh in Jess's whispered voice, and she glances at the somber knot of the family she's joining, sobering now and resting her chin on her fist. "Sam's been putting off letting me meet his family for about a year, now. I guess. . . I don't know. Dean seems great. . ."

Castiel rumbles a wordless confirmation, letting himself look at Dean again now that he has an excuse.

". . . But they're both on eggshells talking about their father, and I . . . I always figured Sam was worried to let me meet him for some reason. Now he's beating himself up because I never will."

"From what little I've gathered, they've had a difficult relationship." Castiel's words are tellingly interrupted by an increase in volume from the eldest Winchester, bitter and pained, and Castiel has to force himself to keep his seat, to not literally rise to his defense.

"Ellen, there's not really going to be a funeral. It's not like people are lining up to come talk about how great he was, and near as I can tell we're more likely to get a bunch of assholes who want to soapbox because of the accident. You don't want put the Roadhouse into the middle of some frikkin' 'drink responsibly' crusade, showing up as the people mourning the guy who drove drunk all the time and eventually killed two people. I'm not gonna let you get dragged down too just because we all feel like shit that we let him drink himself into a hole."

"Dean." Sam rests a hand on his brother's arm, trying to calm him down, to soothe his obvious guilt, and Dean shrugs him off and glares.

"What, Sam? You know I'm right. You hauled ass to California as soon as you could and I slunk off to fucking South Dakota. He pissed off everyone in this town, even you Ellen. Even Bobby hasn't talked to him in five years, and it's been fifteen since they were really friends. We all left him. . ."

"You ever stop to think the only person John had to blame for that was himself, boy?" Ellen shakes her head slightly, bracing her hands on the bar top between them. "You loved your dad, you both did, nobody doubts that. Him dying doesn't mean the crap he pulled goes away, but he's gone and this is for the people he left behind. I'm not trying to go to his funeral to show support for him, Dean."

"Then why the hell even go?"

"Because we're your family, idiot." Jo snipes, arms folded on the bar. "Yeah, John was an asshole. . ."

"Joanna Beth!"

". . . I'm not saying anything he doesn't know! I was as much involved in kicking his ass out of here as you were, Mom." Jo flashes a glare at her mother, before turning back to Dean. "He was an asshole. But without him, we'd never have met you two. I'm sorry he died, Dean. I am. And I'm sorry you're hurting. But you're the one that made us family, not him. And I don't give a shit about appearances. Blaming a bar for alcoholics is like . . . like blaming spoons for making you fat. And anyway, all you're doing is coming up with the worst possible scenario: you've got no idea if someone's going to make an issue of it anyway. And even if they do, fuck 'em. You two are going, so I'm going. So shut up about it already."

Sitting at the table, eyes narrowed and head canted to the side as he silently watches this family interaction, Castiel comes to the realization that he likes the Harvelles and their unwavering if unorthodox support of the Winchesters. He likes Jessica and her easy manner. He is cautiously optimistic that given time he and Sam might grow to like each other as well. This is the strangest little family unit he's encountered, but it's far more genuine than his own.

And for that, he's somewhat envious.

xXx

The already dim sunrise is turning into a slate gray afternoon, the air clinging and humid, clouds and ash combining to make the skyline forbidding and dismal. It suits Dean's growing mood.

They drop Sam and Jessica off at the hotel to change and to have lunch on their own before the funeral, and Dean brings Cas back to his apartment, his own bag in hand to allow him to eat, borrow Castiel's shower, and change into more appropriate funereal attire before leaving. Dean is quiet through the ride there, withdrawn again with a perpetual crease between his brows, and when he parks he stares blankly at the tarp-covered shape of his car in Castiel's covered space.

They're cremating his father, feeding John Winchester's body to 1500 degree flames and reducing him to ash, as his eldest son sits staring at the only token of their life before the fire knowing it's scarred and damaged now because of him.

Castiel sits in the passenger seat watching him with a frown, before reaching over and unbuckling his seatbelt. Stepping out of the car, Castiel hooks Dean's bag out of the back seat and circles the vehicle, opening the driver's side door to draw Dean out by the hand and up the stairs to his apartment. There's something incredibly satisfying about setting Dean's bag down on his dresser, a sign that Dean is here, anchored by this small trove of possessions that he won't leave without. Then he turns to Dean again, slides his arms around him, and tugs his shirt off smoothly.

"Shower." He explains when Dean tenses, hands sliding down his chest, fingertips tracing along defined muscles slowly before hooking into the button of his jeans and pausing. He waits until Dean meets his eyes, until he knows Dean is back with him from wherever he just went and is giving Castiel his complete attention, before he pops the button, curling his fingers into the pull of the zipper and sliding it down tooth by tooth. "May I join you in it? It needn't be sexual."

The slow approach started as a way of giving Dean time to stop him, giving him the chance to tell Castiel to give him space, to push him away or just take control again, but with an interested twitch of Dean's hardening cock, Castiel finds himself curiously dragging his knuckles lightly down Dean's length through jeans and boxers as he slowly unzips his fly.

Dean shouldn't be letting himself get distracted. He should be wallowing in self-loathing and grief right now. But Castiel is uniquely distracting, and he knows that's the point, that's what Cas is up to, the plan unapologetically transparent.

"Hah, 'needn't be sexual.' Jesus fucking Christ you're a tease. And now I'm saying 'Jesus fucking Christ' to a priest." Dean groans, and Castiel tsks quietly, shaking his head, allowing his fingers to just barely dip into the waistband of Dean's boxers, sliding on either side to his back, leaving him with his hands caressing down the curve of Dean's ass as he pushes both layers of clothing down together until gravity pools them at Dean's feet.

"I'm really not, you know." Castiel murmurs against Dean's neck, kissing the jumping pulse point of his carteroid, leaning into Dean's naked body even as Dean kicks his shoes off and his jeans away from him.

"What, a tease or a priest?" Dean's fingers are fumbling over Castiel's shirt, without the distance needed to see or manipulate the buttons easily, but Castiel is busy nuzzling into him, breathing him in with his voice muffled against Dean's skin, completely unwilling to make things easier on him.

"Either. I haven't been a priest in years. Longer than I was ever ordained, now. And, technically. . ." Raising his head, Castiel flattens his hands to Dean's back, keeping them close as he looks him in the eye. ". . . Wouldn't I have to be willing to withhold something to be considered a tease? Was there something that you wanted, Dean?"

Castiel looks and sounds like sex incarnate. His blue eyes are lust-blown and sharply intelligent, shirt half unbuttoned to bare him past his collarbone, jaw shadowed with stubble, and he's offering Dean anything he wants. Dean crooks his finger beneath Cas's jaw, thumb coming to rest in the dimple of his chin, and lets himself stare. "How the hell are you still a virgin, man?"

Something flickers through Castiel's eyes, another secret to be unraveled later, but he arches one eyebrow slightly instead, head tipping faintly to the side, and begins walking Dean backwards towards the bathroom, pushing the door open and then closed again behind him with his foot as he goes. "Are you offering to change that, Dean?" And a moment later, he squints curiously and asks, serious as anything. "Does oral sex count as sex? Am I still a 'virgin' now?"

It catches Dean off guard, startles a guffaw of laughter from him, and then he's untucking Cas's unbuttoned shirt from his slacks and shaking his head. "Cas, rule of thumb. If you have to ask 'am I still a virgin,' far as I'm concerned you're probably still a virgin. Plus, you weren't even the one getting off. Definitely still a virgin."

Castiel looks like he's about to turn sex into a frikkin' philosophical debate, so Dean kisses him to shut him up. And then he kisses him again because he's naked, hard, and Castiel is really fucking distracting and he needs that right now. "Why aren't you naked yet?"

"Why haven't you answered if I can join you in the shower?" Castiel counters easily against Dean's lips, but now he finally joins Dean in stripping himself down; his shirt ends up flung over the sink, slacks kicked to somewhere between the door and the linen cabinet.

"Because I assumed you were the genius here, and you could figure out?"

"I didn't want to make assumptions. I prefer clear permission and instruction." Cas sounds entirely serious, completely straight-faced, but Dean isn't fooled. There's humor to that deadpan. The smartassed sarcastic bastard is teasing him without breaking face at all and Dean narrows his eyes, stepping back to put space between them and wetting his lips before attempting to assemble his own straight face.

He's never had to do that when completely naked and slick and hard as a rock, while staring at a flushed, aroused and sexy Alpha who apparently pings all the right sensors to be pheromone overlord. Even with him doing nothing but blinking those baby blues at him slowly, Cas is making this more difficult than he should. Yeah. He should get bonus points for being able to stare Castiel down stoically.

"Okay, so clear instruction and permission. You and I are going to take a shower together. You're going to keep your hands to yourself. Capice?"

"I. . . yes. I understand." Poor bastard. For half a second, Castiel looks like a kicked puppy, completely confused by a turn of events that has himnot pressed against Dean, not getting to kiss him, and Dean almost relents and gives himself away. He would have, if Castiel didn't politely and dutifully turn away, then, clearly working to control himself. He turns the tap and steps into the shower mechanically with his back to the spray, closing his eyes and clenching his jaw, completely prepared to try and be a 'gentleman' per Dean's request.

He is consequently not prepared for Dean to step into the shower past him, close the curtain, drop to his knees on the floor of the tub, and suckle the head of Castiel's cock into his mouth immediately. The reaction is instantaneous and damned gratifying. The moan ripped from Castiel is loud enough that Dean's fairly certain the neighboring apartment is getting this in movie-theater volume, one hand slapping against the tile to brace himself as the other hand fumbles, smacking at the shower curtain before he manages to grab the rod.

Hands to himself after all. Good. He loves it when a plan comes together. Dean hasn't done this in a while, and Castiel's a frikkin' virgin who might not know when to pull back. Better that Dean's the one running this show for a moment. If they do this again, he'll let Castiel get his hands into Dean's hair, direct him a bit, but no way is he willingly letting an overeager Alpha try to fuck his face and dislocate his jaw on a knot.

Curling one hand around Castiel's hip to keep him still, fingertips pressing into the swell of his ass, Dean tests the weight of Castiel on his tongue, and then bobs his head slowly, a teasing glide, the warm-up act, just to make sure he has Castiel's complete attention.

Not that there's much doubt of that.

Castiel, for his part, is unravelling quickly. He was ready for the metaphorical cold shower, ready to have his advances shut down again. He wasn'tready to be swallowed down by a hot, eager mouth. Dean's lips wrapped around him look obscene, sinful in the best possible way, and as Castiel leans over him, shielding him from the spray of the water, Dean glances up at him through his lashes and winks.

It takes ten seconds after that for Castiel to realize how much more to a blow job there can be than just sucking and moving your head. Dean pulls back, leaving the tip nudging against soft, spit-slicked lips, darting his tongue at the slit and waiting until Castiel is meeting his eyes. Wrapping a hand around the base of his cock and squeezing, a rhythmic pulse of pressure that drags another moan out of Castiel that seems too-loud in the enclosed space, Dean swirls his tongue around the head of Castiel's cock, and begins fucking his mouth onto him, each time bringing his lips down to the circle of his own hand. . . and the growing knot Dean is teasing into life beneath it.

"Holy mother of . . ." Dean hums around him, laughs, and the vibration of it is more than Castiel can handle. "God, Dean!" This is his Omega, hismate, in a pose of genuflection and kneeling, of submission, but by the look in his upturned eyes Dean knows completely who is in charge. He is all bare skin and sleek muscle, gorgeous and perfect and turning Castiel inside-out, until he is babbling broken prayers and uninhibited moans and when he comes he's fairly certain everyone in the apartment complex hears it. With the first hot splash into Dean's waiting mouth Castiel manages to rip the shower curtain off of several of the cheap plastic rings.

But then he doesn't stop. Dean swallows until he can't, until come is escaping his lips, and rather than release Castiel completely he shifts back to his feet. Each deliberate pulse of Dean's hand around his knot seems to milk more from Castiel, wrenching another burst of pleasure, and he hasnever done this before. It takes Castiel a moment to manage to crack one eye open again, watching as he marks Dean's skin with his seed, and now he realizes his hands are free and he needs to touch him.

Castiel locks an arm around Dean and pulls him close, watching the water of the shower spray mix with the next spurt of his come between them as Dean teases more from him. He drags his fingers through the mess, wraps his hand around Dean's cock, and begins to stroke, root to tip, letting himself watch. Dean's eyes fall shut, his bruised lips slackening, and Castiel dives in to taste himself on them as Dean gets the idea and presses their erections together, letting them work together, a dirty slide and squeeze that has Dean coming as well, mixing his load with Castiel's.

They slump together against the tile wall, spent, until Dean's sated laugh cracks Cas's eye open, blinking water away as the shower stream now falls between them.

"Considering what comes out of your mouth when you come, I don't feel so bad about 'Jesus fucking Christ' anymore." He teases ruthlessly, just to see if Castiel can blush even after that experience. He can. And does. And then he slurs something that was likely a come-back, but fails at properly being any discernable language, too blissed-out to care. Dean grins smugly and turns Castiel towards the spray. "Guess that leaves me with clean-up."

Dean soaps Castiel up, massaging fingers through his scalp and then carefully rinsing the shampoo out, before letting the water rinse away the evidence of Castiel's first ever assisted orgasm. Under the guise of cleaning him, he presses Castiel's muscles to supple, loose and relaxed, and by the time they're both clean Castiel's knot has receded, and the dark haired doctor himself is easy to tip into bed and tuck in.

Dean tugs on his dress clothes, scrawls his name and phone number on a scrap of paper with a brief note to call him when he's conscious and that he'll be back after. Then he leaves the sleeping Castiel before he can realize that Dean never intended to bring him to the funeral.

Castiel has had to watch Dean grieve since he met him. He had to be there with him when John died. Dean needs to do this part by himself.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean doesn't figure the heavens opened up to weep over John Winchester's memory so much as the clouds decided to take a dump on everyone who dared to show up for his funeral.

The summer rain that's been threatening to fall since dawn finally mixes with the ash cover of the day, and the resultant sludge-like precipitation drips like muck off of the cheap plastic awning the cemetery provided for the service. As they stand in front of Mary Winchester's tombstone at Stull Cemetery, John Winchester's name now engraved above hers, Dean figures he should do the romantic thing, the optimistic thing, and think that it's great that they're finally together again . . . but that's bullshit. They're just stuck in the ground in the same damn place, a memorial to senseless tragedy and how it only takes one to trigger a perpetual motion machine of people screwing themselves up. And that's what it came down to, in the end. There's no one to blame for John's death but John, no crusade, and no investigation that the boys can do into his death. It's just the inevitable conclusion of a downward spiral that's been ongoing since the fire, and hit terminal velocity five years ago.

Dean is the sole pallbearer. Of course he is: the cremation casket is a metal air-tight capsule no bigger than a mason jar, everything that was his father seared down to its base components. It slides into the base of the tombstone and then Dean sticks the brass plate engraved with a cross over it. Sometime after they leave, someone from the funeral home will come drill it into place, and that's it. That's the actual burial. Everything else is just cookie-cutter words from a funeral-home provided minister, and an old retired Marine in dress blues that could use to be hemmed playing Taps on a single bugle, also arrange for to honor John by the funeral home.

When it's not raining, they insist they'll stick a small flag there too. Semper frikkin' Fi.

He expected people coming to metaphorically piss on his father's grave because of how he died, but the group of them Ellen had warned might show had apparently been rained out. Small favors. What there is instead is worse. A slow line of black cars that files into the cemetery as they're wrapping up, trailing deeper in, and as he holds the umbrella over Jo to let her into her car without getting slimed by the rain he squints until he sees another awning, identical to the one they had been under, and umbrellas popping open like mushrooms in the rain, a slow-moving mass of people, and he can hear a child crying, the kind of hiccoughing sob that can't be faked and is impossible to really contain.

Of course their funeral is on the same day. Of course it's in the same cemetery. Why wouldn't it be?

Sitting in the driver's seat, staring out of the windshield with her door still open, Jo reaches out and squeezes Dean's hand without breaking her stare at the distant funeral. He knows she can hear the crying too, is thinking the same thing he is.

After all, both of them had been just old enough to remember the funerals that ended their respective happy childhoods. Dean and Sam had held her hands when they put Bill Harvelle in the ground. He'd just held Sammy through Mary's funeral, curled into a folding chair and around his infant brother, staring numbly.

Dean squeezes her hand back and lets out a shaking breath, nodding slightly at her concerned look up at him. "You should get home, Jo. Go read a book, or sharpen your knives, do whatever it is you do when you're not tormenting drunks. Hell, go get laid." Anything to get her out of here.

"What she's doing is helping me cook dinner." Ellen has joined them, now, holding her own umbrella as Sam stands behind her with Jessica tucked against his side, sheltering her with another one. "You three are invited, your boyfriend too if you're bringing him. Got potatoes, a ham . . . threw some bacon into the green beans for you, even."

She's trying to tempt him with food, a home-cooked meal like he hasn't had in years, and he tries to muster up his usual enthusiasm for her cooking and just. . . can't. Even he can tell how flat he sounds. "That sounds great, ma'am. I just. . . I should get the Impala first, get her to the garage so I can work on her tomorrow, then we'll do that."

Ellen frowns sadly at him for a moment, before dipping her umbrella to the side, stepping under the shelter of his, and hugging him. He wraps his free arm round her shoulders, accepting the embrace until she breaks it and nods, brisk, maternal. "You do that. Then you come 'round and I'll see if I can't put a pie together too for you."

Behind her, Sam stares at his brother before turning Jessica in his arms, and he presses his lips to Jessica's forehead lightly. "Jess, you wanna ride with them? I'll go with Dean, drive the other car back, but you should get somewhere dry." It smells like a set-up, like being cornered again, but Dean's too numb to argue it when Sam slides into the passenger seat of the Explorer and waits for him. Standing under the umbrella as Jo's car eases away, he looks out over the cemetery one last time at the funeral of the couple, and then to his mother and father's gravestone as the cemetery workers pack away the awning efficiently in their wake. As he watches, the gray viscous rain begins to fall onto the now exposed stone.

Ashes to ashes.

xXx

They make it off of the turnpike, over the river and through downtown before Sam's contemplative silence finally breaks. Dean was more comfortable with the silence: Sam learned to grieve from him and from John's almost militaristic parenting, and that meant bottling things up. Trouble is, his little brother had apparently picked up 'talking things out' somewhere along the way, and Dean swears Stanford had only encouraged that bad habit.

"You're not really going back for dinner with us, are you?"

Dean shrugs, non-committal, and uses the excuse of driving to keep his eyes away from his brother. "I'm not hungry."

Sam stares at him like that's the scariest sentence ever uttered by man, like he's about ready to tell his brother to pull over so they can hug it out, like he's planning to take all sharp objects away from Dean before he does something stupid because clearly missing one meal is enough to mean he's gone off the deep end.

"I'm fine, Sammy. Why don't you ask whatever it is you really wanted me alone for? We're going to be there in just a couple minutes."

"You're really putting a time limit on any potential serious conversation, Dean?"

"Your flight's day after tomorrow. We'll see each other before then. In theory we're supposed to talk on the phone at least every week, though we've seen how much life-changing important information doesn't turn up over that. So for now, yeah. Damn right I am. Tick frikkin' tock."

Sam sighs loudly, like air rushing from a flat tire, and hunches into himself in the passenger seat, unknotting his tie. "You should come back to California with us, Dean." Dean opens his mouth, but Sam speaks over him. "Wait, before you blow me off again. It's not . . . it's not like here, Dean. I mean, it's not paradise or anything, but it's a damn sight better than South Dakota or Kansas for progressive. . ."

"When are you gonna give up on this idea that I'm just looking for some sunny happy place to let my freak flag fly, Sam? I'm fine with my life, okay?"

"Yeah, I can tell that by you calling yourself a 'freak' every chance you get. You're right, you sound fine." Dean's silence is stony, and Sam grimaces, trying again. "I just don't like you being so far away, and alone okay?"

"You mean you don't like the idea of not being able to keep an eye out for me. I don't need to be protected. And I'm not alone. Bobby's family, Sam. You're the one living on the other side of the country without any family."

"I'm trying to build a family." Sam's voice is quiet, serious, and his eyes huge and earnest. "I'm trying to build a family, and I want my brotherthere. I miss you, Dean. I'm going to have a kid, and I'm just. . ." Sam turns away, head tilted back, eyes to the ceiling, voice lowered, and Dean knows he's doing it because they're Winchesters and they're not supposed to cry. Whether or not they ever listened to that edict is another matter entirely, but they learned to hide it from others. "The only thing I could think of for the longest time after I found out about the baby was just. . . 'don't let me be the kind of father Dad was.' And then all of this, and I feel like shit about thinking that way, but it's true. I can't be that."

"You won't be." Dean knows what he means, in both counts. He's dropped his voice to match Sam's, quiet in the stillness of the car, as if he has to hide from the dead, from a memory. They're driving away from their father's funeral, and they shouldn't be thinking this way, but he needs Sam to know the truth of it, needs to assuage his fears because that's his job, that's always been his job. "It's not in you, Sam. You're gonna be great."

Sam's laugh is wet with unshed tears, and he shakes his head slightly. "Yeah, I know that now, Dean. We turn out like the people that raised us. And for me, that means you. I want to be the kind of parent to my kid you were for me, and I want you to be there for that. Because I knowyou're going to be an awesome uncle too, and I want to see that."

He can't agree with that assessment. He tried with Sam, he really did, and he'd give anything for his baby brother. He gave him up, even, to California and to Stanford, because it was better for him. Because Dean is like John, like the man who raised him; the paranoia, drinking away his problems, burying himself in work, destroying the people around him, but the entire time he was trying and Dean could see it, could respect the struggle. Even the success Sam's giving him of raising him, that was orders from his father first. Take Care of Sammy. Dean had managed to idolize John even while sheltering his brother from his flaws, until five years ago. By then he had patterned himself so tightly off a picture he'd built of his dad that he can't break free of it, and his father's criticisms ring in his ears even now.

Dean is damaged goods in every possible way and he knows it. He knows that Sam knows it, too, he just doesn't want to admit it. So he gives the answer he needs to, the answer he's given every time his brother has hinted that he wants to subject himself to that again in his new, better life.

"My life's in Sioux Falls, Sam. My job, Bobby, everything."

"My future is in California. It's the houses I'm looking at with Jess, it's the law firm, and her teaching job, and the school districts we're checking out thinking about the baby." Dean's known that Sam's path was towards that happy apple pie future he wanted for years, knew it from the day he held the thick Stanford envelope of Sam's acceptance letter in his hands and carried it in to him, his heart in his throat because that was it, Sam was getting away, getting somewhere good enough to deserve him. "Your life's in South Dakota, Dean . . . but where's your future?"

Dean doesn't have an answer for that. The question sits between them, heavy and painful and telling, because Dean doesn't see any future for himself. Just trying to keep himself alive until he isn't any more.

And that breaks Sam's heart.

xXx

Dean half-waves goodbye as Sam drives away in Ellen's Explorer, standing beside his tarp-covered car, his baby. After a moment, he finds her bumper with his shoe, climbing up onto her hood, the ease of familiarity thrown off by the slippery material beneath him until he finds his usual perch. It's uncomfortable at first, humidity and heat and something digging into his ass, until he strips off his suit jacket, rolls up his sleeves, and empties the pockets of his dress slacks, resting the contents on the hood. He watches cars splash through the puddles on the street outside of Castiel's apartments, their windshield wipers smearing the rain and tires throwing out sheets of water as he tries to gather his thoughts, anchoring himself on the familiar shape of his Impala beneath him.

Car keys and cell phone. They sit next to him like a choice, a decision, not just possessions he carries every day. He rubs the pad of his thumb along the edge of his key, the dips and curves of it, thinking. And then he reaches for the phone, bringing up the contact list, his thumb hovering over the entry Castiel put in for himself. First name, last name, address, email address, cell phone, work phone. Every possible way he could contact Castiel, laid out in front of him as a blatant invitation. He could leave. Use the keys, take the car, and see himself out of Castiel's life the way he should have when he left the hospital. Or he can call, ask if he can come up, and try to figure out what it is that keeps drawing them back together.

Sam thinks he should be planning on having a future? He can't even figure out what the fuck he's doing in the present.

His finger hovers over the Call button, but he changes his mind at the last moment and takes the coward's route. It's fitting. After all, he's sitting on a car in the guy's parking lot instead of going up to his door. There are only two feasible outcomes if he goes to Cas. Either he'll be brought back in out of the rain, and he'll just go with whatever happens without thinking about what the fuck is actually going on, or he'll finally be turned away like the fuckup he is.

He has to know first, he has to figure things out with enough distance that he can protect himself.

**Ellen called you my boyfriend. Just realized that I didnt correct her.**

He hits send on the text before he can second-guess himself again, and lays back on the car, head against her windshield, legs stretched out along her hood and eyes closed, resting the cell phone on his chest. He tries to keep his head clear, tries to let it all bleed away, but it's not going well and his mind is racing, concocting possible responses from Cas ranging from dismissive to mocking to something worse, something genuine that Dean won't get to keep.

When the phone buzzes against his chest he keeps his hands steady as he turns it over to see the glowing screen, and he has to blink at the simple response, trying to make sense of it for a moment.

**Am I?**

Four characters. Castiel gave him four characters to work off of, text with no inflection and he can still imagine the head tilt, the earnest need for Dean to tell him an answer. Hell, it's the virginity question all over again, and he doesn't have a rule of thumb to fall back on for Cas this time. Dragging his hand down his face, Dean's response is slow to come to him.

**It's more complicated than that.**

Castiel's response is quick, buzzing the phone in his hands before he has the opportunity to set it back down. Castiel has to be staring at his phone, waiting on Dean's messages, hanging on a word. It's terrifying to think what he says matters that much to anyone.

**It doesn't have to be. Do you want that?**

Bullshit. It is complicated.

Dean's not entirely stupid. Just because he doesn't want to acknowledge it doesn't mean he hasn't figured out that they're apparently so 'compatible' that every time he gets near Cas his brain short-circuits. He was fucking nuzzling the guy's arm before he even knew his first name, let some random doctor hold him up while he broke down over his father, when he should have pushed everyone away. And Cas . . . hell, Deanknew it was hitting him even harder. Dean's a fucking Omega. He pushes out enough 'fuck me' vibes that it's screwed up his life.

They romanticize the crap out of this on television. It's the classic 'love at first sight' story, but with scent and contact, and its crap. This is what he's supposed to want. The best any Omega is supposed to hope for, really, some Alpha to claim them, fuck them, knot them, breed them, and take care of them like the prized personal property they are. It's just a prettier wrapping for the same stupid hormonal bullshit, chemicals and pheromones and biology that shoves him into Heats. Every time he comes near Cas, it's like his entire body is betraying him, rebelling, and he's fucking Cas up too.

But if that were it, if it were just that, he'd have bolted for good by now. He's not a damned slave to his own biology.

The trouble is he likes Cas. The guy who tucked in and cared for his father and was gentle, even knowing what he'd done. A guy who blushed at the drop of a dime and sometimes stuttered through awkward conversations, but was inherently a quiet badass who apparently had issues with bullies. He doesn't understand the kind of faith that would make someone sign up to be a priest, but he respects it, envies it a bit. He wants to know Cas, wants to unravel the expansion-pack past he's picked up in that picture and in Cas's casual allusions because he seems interesting, and unexpectedly deadpan funny, and unconsciously gorgeous. Dean already wants to teach him to cook and god does he want to teach him about how great sex can be, and he wants to crawl into bed with him every night and wrap around him, be held in return.

So from his perspective . . . of course he wants Cas. What's not to want? But what would Cas be getting out of that? A broken, used up Omega so terrified of being made into someone's bitch again that he has no idea of how to be someone's boyfriend. A man who carries so many scars that there's no chance of him being capable of anything healthy, who in the course of a few days has manage to irreparably screw up Cas's life already.

Thunder rumbles and the rain is falling in earnest now, but it's cleaner. Just a normal summer storm, settling in to drench them all and wash away the ash. The message on his screen has sat long enough that the phone went dark, and he has to unlock it again to answer. He feels bad for making Cas wait.

**You shouldnt want me.**

Somehow, he knows not to even bother putting his phone down. The answer comes so quickly that it seems to ride on top of his own, the answer popping up beneath his insistent, instinctual, unscripted, the vibration buzzing in his cupped hands, but the sentiment seems to travel past that, emotions like a current through wires lighting him up.

**I should. And I do.**

Cas is a dumb sonuvabitch for a genius. With a huff of cynical, rueful laughter, Dean lets his thumbs fly across the keys on the screen, sending his confession off to a guy who he knew was damned used to confessions, trained to take them at face value.

**I have no idea what I'm doing, Cas.**

And with that timid confession, Dean is fairly certain he just ended up in a relationship. It's going to be a huge mistake. He knows there's no chance that this is going to work out for either of them. He can't stay in Lawrence. He's not safe here. It's more than just the asshole Alpha rapists he has to worry about, and the thought of it twists his guts in knots. He can't stay in Lawrence, and Lawrence is where Cas lives and works. This is going to end badly. He's going to get invested, start to care, and it's going to shred him and fuck up Cas.

There is no happy ending to his story. No more than there was for his father. He's not built for it.

**Neither do I. We'll figure it out.**

It's a promise, but not necessarily one Cas can keep. The intent behind it, though, is still warm and comforting, a hope of acceptance and comfort, and he wants to wrap himself in it the way he cups the phone between his hands, as if he could hug Cas through the tiny screen of his phone. He isn't expecting it to buzz again so soon, not when he hasn't responded.

**Are you going to come upstairs now?**

Dean squints at the screen suspiciously, and then barks a laugh, and again that one moment of genuine, hard-won humor is enough to shake off the fears. He responds quickly, already knowing the answer.

**Are you watching me, Cas?**

It explains the speed of the responses, and he swears he can hear an answering laugh this time, the distant buzz of a phone vibrating now that he's listening for it past the sound of the rain. Cas is sitting on the stairs up to his apartment, watching Dean. He knows it, should have guessed all along.

**Will you call me creepy again if I say yes?**

Dean laughs again and nods emphatically, knowing Castiel can see it now. He types his response as lightning cracks, thunder fast on its heels, but he doesn't jump and is smiling at his screen.

**Probably.**

This time he knows he hears a laugh, and there's a brief pause, likely Cas typing, before the splash of footsteps through puddles. He gets the buzz of a response and looks to that, rather than try to place the direction.

**Then no. Of course not. You should probably move to your left, though.**

And then Castiel is clambering up next to him onto the car, careful over the tarp as he sits down shoulder to shoulder with Dean, who shifts to make room for him. In the short walk from the stairs to the carport he's managed to become soaked, and rain water has saturated the cuffs of his pajama pants from sitting with his feet on the concrete walkway. Rolling his eyes, Dean flings an arm around Cas's shoulder, pulling him in closer and Castiel laying back against the windshield beside him, warm and solid and his now.

And he's Cas's. For however long they make this work.

"Stalker." Castiel huffs a laugh at the accusation, and curls a possessive arm around Dean's waist. Dean's pretty sure they shouldn't be cuddling in a parking lot in a storm, but he doesn't want to move yet. There's something primal and beautiful about an early summer storm, setting the hair on the back of Dean's arms standing up, and as fragile and new as whatever he has with Castiel is, it feels like they're protecting each other against the elements now.

"We're pretty fucked up, you know." Dean observes, and Cas shrugs slightly, not denying it but not bothered by it, either.

"A little unorthodox, maybe. I'm sorry for staring. I saw Sam pull away, and I was worried you were going to disappear on me again."

"Thought about it." Dean admits, and he knows Castiel already knew that. It's not hard to catch a pattern when you get the same response every time.

"I still have your bag. When I woke up, it was still there on the dresser, and I told myself you'd have to come back for it eventually." Castiel pauses, lips pursing slightly, and Dean can tell he's more hurt than he's letting on about being ditched again. "You could have told me you wanted to go alone, Dean. I would have respected your wishes. You didn't have to . . . do any of that, just to get rid of me."

Cas has a point, and he knows it. He's also wrong about part of it, too, and Dean needs him to understand. "Cas, all that? The shower, everything. . . ?" Cas blushes. It's fucking adorable, and Dean brushes his lips against Castiel's hairline, shaking his head. "I wanted to do that. That wasn't just a diversion."

"Good." Cas shifts in place when he realizes how emphatic that was, how much it sounded like he was asking for more of the same, and closes his eyes. "I mean. . ."

Dean snorts in amusement, and it disappears into the sound of the storm, and the lightning cracks almost on top of them, so bright that it leaves an after-image burned on Dean's eyes when he blinks. "Shoulda gone in earlier. But I keep invading your life, and I just. . ."

"You're not invading. But if it makes you more comfortable. . ." Cas is reaching past him on the car, scooping up Dean's keys and sliding off of the car, tugging the weighted tarp akimbo beneath his movement. "Come here, Dean."

Dean blinks in surprise, picking up his phone and his jacket, and by the time he slides off of the car Castiel is beneath the tarp, opening the door and ducking into the dark, cool interior of the Impala.

Dean follows him in, sliding onto the seat and closing the door behind him, and then he keeps sliding, turning in place to straddle Castiel's lap on the seat, cupping Cas's face in his hands and kissing him, slow and deep and claiming.

Everything is cool blues, the lights of the carport and the flashes of lightning shine through the thin tarp, and give it the sense of being underwater, narrowing the world down around them. It's comforting, the smell of leather and the familiarity of this car, and it grounds Cas in hislife to have him here, like this. The hands resting on his thighs are warm and powerful: still and settling, not groping and desperate. This isn't about sex. They aren't about sex. Cas lets the kiss speak for him, pouring himself into it, and this time Dean doesn't try to yank him back.

Together they wait out the storm.


	9. Chapter 9

There's a thigh slotted between his legs, hands pressed into the muscles of his back beneath his rucked up dress shirt, and every once in a while fingernails pressing into the skin, before Cas remembers himself and soothes a hand over the bruises gently, in direct counterpoint to the fact that he has thoroughly and aggressively staked a claim to Dean's lips.

There is something about making out in the back seat of the Impala that feels like being sixteen years old, or what Dean figures a normal sixteen year old would have been like. Dean would never try and claim his teenaged years were exactly normal. Being a teenager was bad enough without throwing in Omega hormones too, let alone the rest of the Winchester Family Baggage. So, making out with Castiel in the backseat of the Impala is more like what Dean's idealized concept of sixteen would be, though he maybe could have gone with a little more below-the-belt-action.

The friction's been mind-melting, but not enough to get off. Just to keep him right on the edge of coming in his pants like a teenager, and the best part is he knows Cas is right there with him on it. It's a deliberate tease, to both of them, and it's good because it puts the focus on the kissing, on the intimacy, on the fact that apparently they don't have to race to the finish because they're going to be doing this again.

It's that whole "relationship" thing that's implicit and hopeful and fucking terrifying.

Right now, the only reason that he's not outright fucking Castiel in the backseat of the Impala is that it's Castiel. Not just that he's an Alpha and Dean has issues, but that the guy's a frikkin' virgin and when Dean goes there with him (it's become a "when," not an "if" and that's enough personal realizations for today, thanks) he wants to do it right. Not in a car covered in bullshit slurs telling Cas what a freak Dean is. The guy's waited long enough to have sex that it should be a frikkin' experience for him.

And shit, that leads to another realization Dean didn't want. Dean's trying to give Castiel what he thinks Cas needs. He's had one actual, legitimate relationship before and he tried and failed to be what Lisa needed and that was pretty much the crappiest way to end things ever because he's never going to be what people need.

Cas's teeth catch Dean's lower lip, a pressure just short of pain, and his attention is dragged back to the man who's been slowly taking him apart. It's fairly obvious Cas has noticed his wavering attention, and he has one eyebrow cocked and a faint quirk to his lips, but concern in his eyes. "You're thinking too hard. It's a little insulting to the one real skill I have in this."

"Yeah, and how is it that the virgin priest kisses like a frikkin' porn star, anyway?" Dean's half teasing, half curious, and Castiel shrugs one shoulder slightly. He makes a damned pretty picture in the light through the blue tarp, the tinted illumination making his already vibrant eyes ethereal and washing out the gold undertones of his skin to rebuild him in porcelain. He's distracting, framed against the leather seat with his shirt off and slung impatiently toward the dash by Dean earlier when he decided he was damn sure going to leave a mark Cas would remember him by. Dean runs his thumb over that mark now, along the tempting bend between neck and shoulder, and smirks to himself when he can feel Cas shiver with the touch, so damned responsive. Bracing his foot against the floorboards where their legs are tangled together to push himself upright again, he locks an arm around Cas and drags him upright with him. "Nope. Up. You're talking this time. You've been neck deep in my personal bullshit since we met, and everything I know about you I could get off a resume."

"Not everything. I assure you the fact that I drink in churches is nowhere on my resume." Castiel huffs, but allows himself to be repositioned, happy to have Dean straddling him again but less happy that he's straddling his thighs, away from where Cas really wants him. They're not going to have sex in the car, though: Dean reminds himself of that fact at Cas's unconscious sulk, the way his hands curl into Dean's hips like he'd pull him in further if Dean would let him, and the fact that drawstring pajama pants were not designed for erection concealment. "It's not really an interesting story."

"Try me."

Yeah, Cas's eye-roll is as hilarious as the one he dragged out of him cooking breakfast the other day lead him to believe. It's this second one that decides it for him, the way his head rolls back to look at the blue tarp over the back window, the way an eyeroll involves both hands flipping palm-up as if he's praying to God to explain how he gets himself into these situations, and how it involves a completely silent, exasperated sigh. Definitely just as good as Sam's bitchface, in its way. Dean smirks, keeps himself from laughing, but doesn't relent on demanding the story and doesn't let himself get pulled back into Castiel's lap further.

"I suppose you have my brothers to thank for that. . ."

"Wow, that's a lot kinkier than I expected, Cas." The quip is quick to Dean's lips with a pronounced leer, and Cas lowers his chin again to glare at Dean for interrupting the second he gets started. "Oh don't look at me like that, Cas. Frikkin' triplets, you had to know where my mind was taking that."

"I wasn't talking about Emmanuel or Jimmy. And I have never 'made out' with any of my siblings, Dean." Cas huffs, slouching back into his seat, and look there. . . Dean's already getting more information out of this 'not interesting' story than he had expected.

"Wait, there's more of you?"

Castiel frowns, and his hands drop from Dean's sides, head falling back to rest against the top of the back seat as he stares up at the blue tarp, listening to rain fall on the car port roof above them. He's thinking too hard for this to be just a short interruption for a breather and some banter, and Dean almost feels bad now for bringing it up. "Yes. I have seven other half-brothers."

Ten kids. Dean whistles, low and surprised, and blinks at Cas. "Sisters?"

"My father wasn't looking for daughters." Castiel supplies, dull and withdrawn.

This is rapidly turning into The Family Talk, and Castiel looks quietly miserable about it. "You don't want to talk about it, we can drop this, Cas." Dean doesn't want to, though. Not really. He's curious, has been curious since he picked up the photo on the shelf, and maybe even before that, at the hospital when he saw Cas's face while the last rites were delivered.

"No. I should. It's only right that you know." Cas shakes his head slightly, and takes Dean by the hips again, carefully off-balancing him so that he joins Cas on the seat instead, an arm slipped around Dean's waist in what was becoming its customary position, the other reaching up to take ahold of the handle above the window, shifting himself to bring Dean against his side. He doesn't want Dean staring at him through this conversation. How ironic. "My father was wealthy. Like many of his particular social status, he liked to demonstrate that wealth in an obvious way. Cars and houses are less of a lasting legacy than sons to carry on your name, prove your virility, and each one indicates that you're secure in your wealth enough to expect you can support them comfortably. It's archaic, but prevalent."

"So you have an ass-ton of brothers because your old man wanted to prove he was rich and manly enough to make his own baseball team if he wanted to?" Dean surmises, both eyebrows raised, and Castiel shrugs.

"Essentially, yes."

Dean's not surprised to find out Cas comes from money. College, seminary school, medical school. . . education isn't exactly cheap, and Cas has done more than his fair share. And then there's the matter of his twins and the realization Dean came to, looking at that picture. He wants to ask, but he doesn't get the chance to. Cas sighs, resting his head back against the side window, and closes his eyes before continuing. "My two eldest brothers, he had with his first wife. Michael and Lucifer."

"Who the hell names their kid Lucifer?" Dean interjects incredulously, blinking.

"A man who named me Castiel? You said it yourself when I gave you my name, it's not precisely common." Cas deadpans immediately, and Dean has to admit he has a point. "We all had Christian connotations to our names. If you ask my brother Gabriel, less because of any religious belief and more because our father had a 'God Complex' and was wealthy, and wealthy people have a tendency to name their children whatever they wish. Gabriel frequently reminded me that it could have been worse, and then concocted worse names for us and attempted to make them stick." Dean snorts, but lets it go. Rich people come up with the weirdest shit. Dean's never figured it out; then again, Dean's about as far from rich as you get. It didn't mean he got to escape 'daddy issues,' though, obviously. "I suppose I'm lucky that my father lived long enough to stipulate the names for the three of us."

There's something bitter and sharp to Castiel's words, and as he forces himself to continue his tone becomes clipped, precise, and mechanical. Dean leans into him, a hand caressing up and down his bare ribs soothingly, and presses his lips over Castiel's sternum before stretching out along the seat, laying his head back against Cas's chest. "Three wives produced four sons, and by the time Raphael's mother left, he decided there was no need to remarry. 'Fertility clinics' were less long-term expense than a potential divorce, and offered a different possibility to him."

"Omegas." Dean says into the quiet that falls, and Cas rests his cheek against the top of Dean's head, coiling his other arm around him as well, now, providing comfort as well as taking it. Dean knew this much, he figured it out himself, but the idea makes him nauseated, leaves him cold and unsettled and uncomfortably aware of the fact that directly on the other side of the door from his feet, 'Omega Bitch' is carved into the metal. Head down, ass up, the only way you're worth the fuck. Even the scratched in symbol for Omega, the Alpha assholes throughout his life had managed to turn into something else, something vulgar in his mind. A pictogram for a bow-legged boy forced to bend, forced to present himself for a knot.

"Yes. I didn't. . . I didn't realize until I was older, but yes. He also enjoyed the crèche for the opportunity it presented of not having to raise his next children himself. The four eldest, they're the only ones he had a hand in raising. My brothers and I were to be his crowning proof of his Alpha status. Triplets-fertilized, bought and paid for. If he hadn't provided for us in his will, with trust funds set aside in his estate, I'm not certain Jimmy, Emmanuel and I would even have been taken out of the crèche. He died before we were. . . 'ready.' Jimmy is named after him, consequently. The last of his children."

"Jim Novak, huh?" Dean doesn't know the name, but Cas's dad sounds like an asshole. He can relate, and he can't hold that against Cas any more than Cas held it against Dean that John drunk driving had killed two people.

"James Allen. Novak means 'New Man.' It was an appellation given to newly converted Christians in many Slavic countries. I changed my name when I reached adulthood, just before I joined the seminary. When I did, so did Jimmy. I think mostly to escape the shadow of our father, but in part because he shared my faith if not my calling."

Castiel talks about Jimmy the way Dean knows he talks about Sam. Proud, loving, familiar. But there's something else there, too, something sad. Castiel takes a deep breath and forces a change in tone, shoving it away before Dean can pin it down. "So. I suppose to answer your earlier question. Lucifer, Gabriel and Balthazar enjoyed sex, alcohol, food and parties and all three were attempting to encourage me to lose my virginity, from a fairly young age. I had no particular interest, which they each took as a personal challenge in their own ways. . ."

"Dude, you're telling me you're rich, hot, and smart. Yeah, as a big brother myself, I can see where they'd expect you to get some." Dean is encouraging the change in tone, allowing Castiel to dictate where the discussion goes, to push aside whatever else it is about his family that has him so screwed up. They'll get back to it. Dean needs to put the idea of the breeding farm Castiel was born at far out of his mind, and he's forcing himself not to imagine his own childhood now.

"My family is wealthy. I have an apartment in Kansas, a bus pass, and a trust fund I cannot touch excepting in certain circumstances." Castiel corrects, completely ignoring the point.

"Okay, but Cas. Seriously. Who doesn't have 'an interest' in sex? Sex is awesome." When done right.

"So I've heard." Cas is droll, dry, and faintly amused. "I've developed a recent 'interest' in it myself, so I'll let you know my personal findings after thorough research." That's the most upfront statement Dean's ever heard from Cas about their sex life, and he twists in his arms to look up at him only to find Castiel still has the art of stoicism down pat, visually giving him nothing to go off of. Dean laughs, then, hearty and genuine, and Castiel seems to quietly revel in it and regroup because of it, arms tightening around Dean, dipping down to press a kiss to the top of his head. "Now, if I may finish my story. It was easier to avoid the possibility of them shoving at me half-dressed party-goers far more interested in my brothers than in me if I was already engaged elsewhere. I intended to become a priest and therefore celibate, I had no interest in sex, but my brothers are persistent. It was easier to avoid criticism if I was doing something else. 'Making out' is a loophole in celibacy. . ."

"So you just. . ." Dean's snickering, and Cas flicks a finger against his ear warningly. "You seriously just sat around at your brothers' parties necking with people whenever they came by to keep them off your back?"

". . . If you want to boil it down to so simple of terms. I prefer to think of it as a great deal of practice in one area. I specialized. It was more effective than when I attempted to read a book while they threw parties in our home."

"For a badass, you're such a friggin' nerd." Dean's laughing hard enough now that it's making his bruised ribs hurt, clutching Cas's arm in his own to hold them in place, and that's enough to make Cas chuckle silently, so he can feel it rumble against his back. "C'mon, Poindexter. Get your shirt on, get me inside, dry and fed, then maybe we can look into doing some 'research' of our own."

Dean finds himself without a backrest fairly quickly at that as Cas immediately stretches across the seats to snag his shirt, shrugging it back on. Dean laughs again at the suddenness of it. He doesn't get why a guy who 'didn't care about sex' suddenly has the hots for him, but when Cas lays another kiss on him before opening the back door and holding up the tarp for him as if holding the door for a date, there's no doubt in his mind that he does. "Someone's eager."

". . . I'm hungry too?" Castiel lies transparently, blue eyes wide as Dean grabs his suit jacket, phone and keys again.

"Uh-huh." Dean snorts, and tucks the edges of the tarp down around his baby fussily after he clambers out. "Sure you are. C'mon, let's get. . ."

"Dean." There's a warning to Castiel's voice, low and sudden, a hand on his arm that draws him back, and then Castiel is in front of him, keeping him tucked on the other side of the covered Impala. Parked at the foot of the stairs up to Castiel's apartment a patrol car idles, clearly waiting. "Please get your brother on the phone."

Shit.

Dean fumbles with the cell phone as Castiel takes a breath, gathering himself, shoulders straighter and head up in a way that demonstrates how hard Cas tries to look harmless the rest of the time. It should look ridiculous from a man in plaid pajamas (top and bottom full pajama set, no one should be able to make that look anything but lame and geeky) but Castiel is pulling it off. Turning, he presses his lips to Dean's forehead as the phone starts to ring, dipping his fingers into the breast pocket of his pajama top and pressing his apartment key into Dean's other hand, squeezing it tightly for a moment.

"Even if he arrests me, stay back out of sight and stay on the phone with your brother." There's a wry twist to Castiel's lips at that. "And please assure Sam that 'legal counsel' is one of the few things that allows me to tap into my trust fund. I'll be fine."

And without waiting for Dean to protest, Castiel paces out into the rain like he regularly took a walk in his pajamas in storms, bare feet splashing in the puddle, circling to the other side of the lot to approach the police car with his hands in view.

Stupid stubborn son of a bitch!

"If you're calling to make your excuses about dinner, Dean, you're too late. I'm eating the pie without you." Sam's voice is warm and friendly, and Dean cuts over him immediately.

"There's a cop at Cas's place. How quickly can you come be lawyerly, Cas is officially hiring you."

The police officer opens the driver's side door, and Castiel stops a polite distance away, hands loose, offering a polite nod and words Dean can't hear over the rain.

"To hell with hiring me, Dean. What's going on. . .?" Dean can hear the chair scrape, a sudden abatement of his family's conversation around Sam.

"Pretty sure he's here about Cas kicking the asses of the guys who came after me at the hospital. Not sure if I'm next or not."

"Papers or cuffs, Dean? Ellen, I'm going to need your car again. Jo, call this number for me and ask for Charlie. Jess, throw me my tie? I need to know if he's being served or arrested, Dean. Papers or cuffs, civil or criminal?" The plus side of all this shit going down on the day his father was buried: at least Sam's dressed the part, and apparently he's mobilizing the family to make themselves useful. Just as well, Ellen and Jo were going to throw themselves into the mess either way. "Where are you?"

"I'm at the carport. Cas is. . ." Dean swears, and rubs a hand down his face, stepping deeper into the covered space. "Cuffs."

"Stay where you are, I'll be there in five minutes. If he pulls away with Cas, you stay there, Dean, do you hear me?"

Castiel is being arrested for him. Castiel and Sam are both trying to protect him.

"I hear you. I'm just not listening, Sammy. Cas's apartment key'll be in the Impala, under the tarp. I'll leave the car door unlocked, or use your spare key. You oughta get him some blue jeans or something. No man should have to sit in jail in his pajamas. Hell, get me some too. Fuck it all if I wanna be there in a suit. See you in a bit down at the station, Sam."

Dean hangs up on his brother swearing at him, ducks under the tarp to toss Cas's apartment key where his brother can get it, puts his phone in his pocket, and then approaches the police officer as he finishes putting cuffs on Castiel, raising his hands and his voice, offering his best smart-assed grin.

"Heya, Officer. Room in your car for one more?"

He ignores the annoyed look he gets from Cas for not listening.

Hell, he never claimed he was an _obedient _boyfriend.


	10. Chapter 10

"You realize glaring at me has zero effect, right?"

On any other day, this situation would be terrible. Dean would be tense, prepared to fight and miserable. That's the whole 'being arrested' thing, it's fairly well known for being a sucky experience. As it stands, he's comparatively pretty damned chipper. Probably because the second Cas was getting cuffed, Dean decided being arrested was exactly what he needed to round out today's shittiness. And hey, here he is, shoulder to shoulder in the back of a patrol car with Cas. Mission accomplished.

Despite the fact that he's. . . well, being arrested and cuffed and booked. . . that means he's back in control, because he chose to be here. Sam and Cas had his best interests in mind, Dean has no doubt. But he's been taking care of himself without their overbearing protective gestures just fine for years.

"I would go into how you're incapable of following simple, common sense directions, but I'm afraid I would incriminate myself legally speaking." Castiel growls, and Dean smirks in response. Oh, that's right. Cas can't even chew him out for not staying out of sight, because Cas was therefore encouraging someone with a warrant issued on them to hide from the cops, and helping them.

"Spared a lecture by the law. Who says the system is useless?"

"Yes, let's look at this as a thorough examination of the legal system for recreational purposes, Dean. Are you always this infuriating when people try to help you, or are you making a special effort for me?"

Dean purses his lips, blowing Cas a kiss mockingly. "That's just me, doc. You reconsidering yet?"

"No." Cas replies honestly and immediately. No, he's just as smitten now as he was half an hour ago. Perhaps more so. "But had I known you were by nature this oppositionally defiant I would have changed tactics."

"Wouldn't have worked." Dean assures him cheerfully, and shifts on the seat to give his cuffed hands more room to move behind him, shoulders braced low on the seat back, and he twists to let him hook his fingers into Cas's similarly cuffed hands, squeezing Cas's fingers between his gently. It's a little bit of contortionism, but it's worth it for how the air rushes out of Cas all at once, how he slouches down in the seat to return the gesture.

"So, newlyweds?" The officer in the front seat asks, raising his eyebrows at Dean and Cas in the rearview, visible through the protective grate separating them from the front of the cruiser. He's an older guy, a bit gone to seed, and seemed to have been nursing a travel mug of coffee and a magazine while waiting for Cas to come back. "No offense, guys, but you already bicker like an old married couple."

"It's a skill." Dean grins at the cop, entirely shameless. "Aren't you supposed to be dickishly telling us to shut the fuck up or something? I was all ready to rail against oppression."

"Why the hell would I do that?" The cop snorts, shifting into drive. "Contrary to reputation, not all cops are dicks. I didn't have to chase anyone to make an arrest, and I'm apparently pretty much set for entertainment for the rest of the ride, at this rate. So nope. You two keep bitching, it's funny stuff."

Dean turns to Cas, a triumphant smirk painted across his features, and jerks his chin at the cop. "See? He thinks I'm funny."

xXx

The booking officer is less tolerant, but at this rate Dean's pretty much decided they can all go to hell if they have a problem with him. His last encounter with the police of Lawrence has left him with the clear understanding that the few good cops they may have doesn't change that their policy on Omegas means as a teenager they decided he must have asked for what happened to him.

He won't admit it, but it's slightly comforting that he's going through this all side-by-side with Cas now. From the regular glances Cas steals at him while being fingerprinted and asked questions at the next table by another officer, he's not the only one. The whites of Cas's eyes are too visible, his eyes a bit too wide, and whatever risks he's taken in his professional career one time stealing breakfast was enough to let Dean know this would be his first brush with being a criminal. So, he does his best to be nonchalant and comforting to Cas, just by being there.

Dean gives his name, birthdate, confirms his address, lets them roll his fingers in ink, smirks for the camera, and then answers the personal questions with half an ear for Cas's own.

"Gender Designation?"

The hatchet faced Alpha officer in front of him already knows this. Dean can tell. It hasn't been half an hour since he was in the back of his car with Cas, making out and planning to drag the doctor upstairs and screw his virgin brains out, and he hasn't had a shower since. . . well, theirshower that afternoon. He's not covered in engine grease, or masked by the pungent soap he usually favors, and that works against him. Any Alpha with a nose can probably smell exactly what Dean is, and that he's been stewing in arousal since Cas joined him on the hood of the car.

Dean knows what this guy is from the way his pupils dilate, and this asshole just wants him to say it, wants to force the confirmation.

"Omega Male." Dean supplies dryly, staring the officer down without blinking, without ducking his head in unconscious submission to his authority, challenge clear in the cant of his jaw.

The pen flicks over the square it was already hovering over, and the officer sneers faintly as he asks the next question.

"And for the protection of yourself and others, when is your next Heat, or when was your last?"

It's an invasive question from a guy getting off on being invasive. Cas has fallen silent down the line of tables, his head turning to scowl at the officer in front of Dean, his hands curled into fists in his cuffs. The camera flashes. Yep, Cas is going to have scary sex-haired, pajama-wearing, psycho serial killer looking mugshots at this rate.

"Today's Sunday? Figure about Thursday, then." Cas's eyes widen impossibly, turning to Dean now, and Dean snorts and addresses him without shifting his challenging stare at the officer. "Down, boy."

It does raise painful questions, though. He's been aware of how close his heat was since his father's accident dragged him back to Lawrence. The thought's crossed his mind a few times as he found himself terrified of the pull between him and Cas, but the plan was always to finish up at his Dad's place, pack up, and haul ass back to Sioux Falls. Cas threw a wrench in that. Facing charges is going to prove a bigger complication because he can't leave until this is off the table.

The officer in front of him notices the interaction (how could he not, Cas is less than subtle) and his gaze swings to Castiel, dismissing Dean in front of him. He opens his mouth to ask the next question to Cas, as if now that he knows they're together he can get the answers from Dean's mate or whatever the fuck, and Dean grits his teeth together. "I'm right here. You don't have shit you need to ask him unless you've got hispaperwork in front of you, jackass."

The officer's angry eyes snap back to Dean's face, and he offers his most infuriating bared-teeth grin.

Bring it, fucker.

xXx

They bring Dean to a separate room to pat him down, and he tenses the second he's out of contact with Cas, waiting in a stall facing the wall, still cuffed. He knows its procedure. They can't stick them in a cell and then have them pull a knife or something, but he doesn't want that asshole's hands anywhere near him. But instead of Hatchet-Face, it's the arresting officer who steps in, offering him a faint tip of the head and a lefthand smile.

"My favorite self-arresting comedian criminal of the day. There's a speech I could give you, but it comes down to 'we don't want to be sued or accused of wrongful arrest practices,' and there's some lawyer already in our lobby asking about you, so they're being careful. So, we don't have an Omega officer on staff, or we would ask if you wanted to wait to be frisked by him. I'm here to ask if you want us to try and get someone from the next county, which could take a couple hours, or if you are comfortable with one of us here doing the honors. I've already got a pretty good idea from watching tapes that you're ruling out. . ."

"The asshole. Yeah, no thanks there. Don't need anyone getting their jollies off with a body cavity search." Dean narrows his eyes at the officer, faintly confused by him. "Beta?"

"Technically I don't have to answer that since I'm not the guy under arrest, but yep. That's me. The boring pheromone-free officer of the evening. You're alright, but you're just not doing it for me, sorry man." Glancing behind him at the open door of the stall, he lowers his voice. "My niece is an Alpha Female, kid. You should see the kind of shit she gets, too. And to tell you the truth, I'm only volunteering to do this because it means I'm pretty much off for the rest of my shift doing paperwork and eating pizza at my desk and watching my bosses squirm, and then I get to go home in time to get some sleep before my weekend."

"Well, can't fault your honesty I guess." Dean smirks at the officer, shrugs and turns to face the wall. "Better you than him, and I'm thinking the longer this drags out the more anxious the guy who came in with me's gonna be."

"Your boy's pacing a hole in holding." The officer confirms in amusement. "Kinda impressive in a concrete box with bare feet. Let's not even talk about the suit who you've got here. I think my sergeant is shitting himself right now. I knew you'd be a fun one."

xXx

It's Officer Hatchet-Face, not Officer Uncle, who directs Dean into the county hold. The cuffs bite into Dean's skin enough to be purposeful as he twists them slightly before removing them, half shoving Dean into an empty holding cell.

"Dean, are you okay?"

The metal door clangs shut behind Dean, and he turns to tip an imaginary hat at the police officer with a sneer. "Pleasure doing business with you."

"Dean. Are you okay." Cas has his hands wrapped around the bars between the cells, eyes fixed on Dean, and he repeats himself sharply, trying to snap Dean away from his staring match. Behind him in the other holding cell, there's a few wolf whistles and cat calls, four others against the bars as well, and Dean can see Cas's jaw bunching, his knuckles whitening.

"I'm good." This is holding, three community cells for drunks, petty crooks, and to hold everyone else until a judge decides if they're jail bound. It's legal limbo. Considering one had to sign the warrant for them, the fact that they're here instead of real jail means they're trying to figure out how to handle the abrupt legal representation harassing them upstairs. Dean's pretty sure he can see Sam's fingerprints on the fact that he's in a cell alone, while on one side of him a single female Beta with mascara smeared down her face is sleeping something off, and on the other side of him every other male drunk, crook and idiot they've picked up this weekend is crowded in with Cas, leering at Dean through the bars. "You?"

"The accommodations leave something to be desired." Dean grins at Cas, and if nothing else he's taught Castiel the art of being sarcastic in the face of shitty circumstances. He'd kiss the guy through the bars, or try to, if getting that close to the other assholes around him wouldn't turn this into some kind of sick Caged Heat Omega porno. He perches on the empty bench against the wall, instead, where he can watch all of the barred sides of his pen and keep Cas's gaze. Cas is holding on by a thread, and Dean's not sure when he learned to read his stoicism so well that a twitch of his eye and the cant of his jaw shows how angry he currently is. "Unfortunately, relocating them all involved that. . . officer" He manages to make it sound like a curse word, spitting it angrily. ". . . making it completely clear why they were being moved to one cell."

"C'mon over here bitch, ass to the bars, I'll show you a good time. . ." One drunk slurs, and Dean keeps his eyes on Cas and shakes his head slightly, warning him down before he can complicate things by trying to defend Dean's nonexistent honor.

"Let it go, man. There are cameras and you're already in here for assault. I'm used to it."

"Which makes it all the more reprehensible. And makes me that much more livid." Castiel growls tersely in response.

". . . take you in a line up, let you milk us all dry. . ."

"Yeah, well, you don't exactly expect the best of humanity in a jail do you, Cas?" Dean's trying to maintain his humor, keeping Cas's eyes on him, and it's the first time he's ever had to work to keep Castiel's attention. "Pretty much what I figured. Hell, all told, this could be worse."

"You shouldn't be here at all."

Dean grins at him again, trying to tune out the other guy, trying to will Castiel to as well. "Still pissy about that? Ship's kinda sailed there, man."

". . . plug you up, pump you so full you'll be leaking for days, leave you with a little reminder of us in nine months, bitch. . ."

"Shut up!" Dean grimaces as Cas snaps and shoves himself to his feet quickly, coming closer to the bars and wrapping his hands around Cas's as best he's able, keeping him in place, keeping him from lashing out physically. He can feel Cas literally shaking with anger, trying to control himself. "If you speak to him again I will . . ."

"Cas. Dean." Dean's not sure he's ever been so happy to see his little brother. Sam is immaculate in his funeral suit, long hair tamed back, broad shouldered and imposing as he scowls into the cells, Officer Uncle by his side with the keys. "I'm getting a judge to set a bail, we're getting you out of here. . ."

"Get him out of there." Dean commands, still holding onto Cas's hands just in case, though Cas has his forehead against the bars now and is piecing together his admirable self-control. It's against Sam's instincts too, when everything would have him free his brother first. Dean knows the score. They're stuck here until some judge decides how likely they are to run, and how much they're worth if they do. But Sam can still take them aside one at a time, do the legal counsel crap in some mirrored room somewhere, warn Cas not to talk to the cops or discuss finances or whatever the fuck he needs to do to get Castiel out of that cell before he punches someone.

Sam's a professional. Cas is a client now. There's a moment though where it's just Dean's little brother, looking torn and being forced to make a decision he doesn't like, begging Dean not to make him leave him in a cell. ". . . I need to speak to Doctor Novak regarding the charges . . ."

Dean tries to convey his thanks and assure his brother he'll be okay in a look and a nod, before squeezing his hands over Cas's on the bars and lowering his voice to a rough whisper. "Go, Cas. I got this."

As the officer directs Cas out of the cell and towards his brother, Dean steps away and puts his back to the wall again, sliding down to sit on the bench with his knees drawn up, elbows resting across them, and tries to tune out the drunken leers. The sympathetic officer comes by once to bang his nightstick across the bars yelling at them to shut up, but then he's gone, his shift over as he'd said, and Dean is left alone to listen to the same bullshit he's dealt with his entire adult life.

He rolls his eyes before closing them, leaning his head back against the wall, and casually flips off the other cell. "Yeah yeah. Get some new material, assholes."

He pretends to sleep.

xXx

"Sit down, Castiel. You're not helping Dean by pacing." Sam sounds too reasonable, too collected, and Castiel glares at him in response. "You think I'm not worried too? He'll be fine. He's on camera, he's in a separate cell, and I've got my assistant heckling everyone with any pull over this on the phones over their Sunday dinner as we speak." Sam is belying his own calm demeanor, though, checking his cell phone for reception to make sure if he gets a call back from the judge, it'll come through to him without waiting for the jail to tell him. "Okay, so a Nathan Hardey's your primary concern here. He's claiming you attacked unprovoked and left him with . . ."

"I am a doctor, Sam, I know precisely what I did and I knew it when I attacked him." Castiel interrupts abruptly, without stopping his pacing, tugging at the sleeves of the Henley he's changed into. Cas doesn't have to imagine what a throat strike could do, he knows. "He had been harassing Dean the night before. He was the ringleader. I was interested in ending the fight as quickly as possible. In interest of full disclosure, I'm certain nearly everything I am accused of is entirely accurate in some respect. My interest in hiring you as my attorney is not in proving my own innocence, it's establishing Dean's."

"Self defense. I'm going to get that tossed out, trust me. We're going to get pictures of Dean's injuries, that'll tell a pretty clear story. I'm more worried about you, legally speaking. Best way I have to do this is to turn it around on them." Sam flips a folder open on the table before him, and sighs. "It's not just the criminal charges. I'll get those dropped, though it'll take some work. They're suing. They're going after the hospital and they're going after you, too, in civil court. . . They're not naming Dean in the civil suit, likely because he . . ."

"Doesn't have money. Whereas the hospital has deep pockets and so does my family, though I'm not certain how they found that out."

Sam looks up in surprise at that, and Castiel shrugs uncomfortably. He's had to tell this story already to a Winchester today. He is not happy doing it again. "Suffice to say, I will need to make a phone call to my eldest brother, who manages the estate, but you are hired to defend me as you see fit. You may be approached by another brother of mine who will attempt to claim family interest in taking over my defense, but I have no desire to indebt myself to them or reestablish contact. For the most part, I do not want those. . . men rewarded after what they did to Dean, and what they tried to do again. I want them to regret it deeply for the rest of their lives. I assumed in that, our interests align most closely."

Sam leans back in his chair, arms folded over his broad chest, and his brow furrows as he stares at Castiel, who stops to face him. "Let me get this straight. You want to go after them with everything, turn it around, and legally rip them apart for hurting my brother. And you want to. . . you're seriously trying to hire me to do that for you?"

"Precisely."

Sam's smile is beautiful.

xXx

It is Jo standing outside of Dean's cell with an armful of clothes and a cream colored skirt suit on that draws Dean back to his feet, as another officer opens the door for her, the catcalls interrupted by activity. "Mister Winchester. . ." There's a glint in Jo's eyes, something to her posture and tone that makes him raise his eyebrows. "I'm here representing your attorney. We're waiting for bail to post, but I was informed by your attorney that you would need a change of clothes and. . ."

Dean doesn't know if he wants to kiss Jo or smack her, or if Sam was involved in this or not. He lets Jo bat her lashes at the officer, and as soon as he and Jo are deposited in another room he gives up and hugs her.

"Where the hell did you get a suit, kiddo?"

"JC Penney. Where'd you think I got it, magical 'I need to look like a lawyer' elves? They're too busy following your brother around and fixing his perfect hair. It was on sale when I bought the dress for the funeral. Seemed a great time to break it out. Unless you just really wanted to sit around in there a couple more hours."

"I'm good, thanks." Dean mutters, and takes the clothes from her hands. He settles for stripping off his button up shirt and shrugging carefully into the t-shirt that smells like laundry detergent and pungent dryer sheets, with Jo scowling at his bruises the entire time. "I'm fine." And he isn't going to screw with jeans for now, when anyone could be watching and Jo isn't going anywhere. "What's going on?"

"Your brother's kicking every hornets nest he can find. Town like Lawrence, no one wants to do crap on a Sunday night, so we're stuck waiting. The judge drinks at the Roadhouse, though, so Mom's doing her thing too and hunting down where he is tonight. You're going to be stuck here until they get the legal crap sorted out, though, so. . . do you want us to help clearing out John's place, or do you want to crash upstairs, or. . .?"

Dean rubs the back of his neck, and pulls out a chair at the interview table, slumping into it. Just as well, if they were pretending she was his lawyer's assistant, in case people were watching. They can't listen to anything legal, but it's still better to look the part. "No, I . . . uh. I think I could probably just crash with Cas?"

"Is that a question, or are you telling me?" Jo teases, and plops herself down into the other seat, arms folded as she watches him. "How serious are you two?" Dean shrugs again. "You realize I'm not a cop, and I'm going to get answers out of you, right?"

"Well, it is an interrogation room." Dean agrees, rolling his eyes. He loves Jo. She's the little sister he never realized he wanted until he couldn't get rid of her. But he's not going to start talking 'boys' with her now. "This really the time?"

"You going to leave here with him and not even show up for dinner when invited? Yep. I think this is the time."

"Still not a chick, Jo. Not going to do the girly gossip thing." Stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankle, he jumps when a high heel kicks him beneath the table, stooping to grab his shin and glare at her.

"Sunuvabitch! Did you not see how many bruises I have already?"

"You said you were fine, I took you at face value. You don't get to have it both ways for sympathy. And I barely nudged you! Quit whining, Winchester." She tuts at him, unrepentant, and braces her chin on her fist. "And I'm girly suddenly? You of all people about to use that like it's a bad thing? I just want to know you're being careful. You don't usually go for dudes, dude."

"Those shoes are evil. And I'm not going to talk about my sex life with you."

"So it's a sex life, huh?" Jo grins, bright and triumphant, and Dean groans and lays his head on the table.

"Wake me up when the paperwork comes through, brat."

xXx

In the parking lot when the cops finally lead them back out into the rain, their paperwork gone through to release them on bail, it's a toss-up as to whether Sam or Cas is going to get to Dean first. Dean watches Cas physically restrain himself, letting his little brother drag him in and hug him, before Sam smacks him on the back of the head lightly. "If you'd have listened I was saying that we could get the judge on the phone and you wouldn't have to do any of this crap."

"Still losing me at the part where you thought I was going to actually listen." Dean smirks, but squeezes his brother before letting him pull back entirely. "Thanks for coming through, Sammy. You got a plan to get me out of this mess, or. . .?"

He doesn't like the look Sam exchanges with Cas. That spells out trouble for him.

"Yeah. A couple ideas. We can talk about it tomorrow, Dean. It's getting late, and I want to get Jess back to the hotel room, she's still at Ellen's." He's right about the time. It feels like a week since John's funeral, let alone breakfast that morning at the hotel, and this is going down as the longest week in history overall. "You mind if I ride with you, Jo?" Sam tosses Dean the keys to the Explorer, looking to the petite blonde who is digging in her purse beside Dean.

"Nope, that sounds good, long as you can contort those stork legs to fit in my passenger seat."

"She's still sensitive about her height." Dean confides to Sam with no attempt to conceal his whisper, and Jo flips Dean off without looking up from where she's apparently excavating to find something at the bottom of her purse. "Smartass."

"Always. Alright. See you two tomorrow, then." Jo looks up, triumphant, and then Dean finds himself with an armful of blonde little sister type.

"Yep. See you then, Dean." She's pressing something into his palm, and when she pulls away she beams at him and doesn't give him time to look or question it. Which is how Dean finds himself holding a round compact container of birth control pills in the parking lot of a police department, completely aware of the fidgeting doctor behind him waiting for him to turn and face him or say something, as if afraid he's done something wrong.

Dean blinks, pockets the pills mechanically, turns to face Cas, and finds himself immediately cocooned in a hug. It's apparently hug Dean Winchester day, and he'd pretend to be annoyed by it, but he can't; Castiel practically clings to him as if to assure himself that Dean's safe. Cas feels like safety, feels like halving the burden of this crap, and Dean's so damned screwed because yeah. Feelings. "I'm okay, Cas. No one was going to actually hurt me in there, I just didn't want you to have to go through all that crap alone because of me."

"Stop blaming yourself." Cas mumbles into Dean's shoulder, and Dean snorts and tightens his arms around Cas in return, pressing a kiss to his hair. The idiot still is trying to defend Dean, even from himself.

"Don't order me around. I'm oppositionally defiant, remember?" He teases, but Cas doesn't look capable of laughing right now. When he raises his head, Dean searches his face for a moment before cupping a hand to his cheek, resting their foreheads together. "C'mon. Get in the car, Cas. Let's go home."

xXx

Dean doesn't realize he has now called Castiel's home his own. Cas, however, recognizes the significance immediately. Dean claimed in their conversation atop the Impala that he was invading Castiel's life. He just doesn't recognize that from the moment they met, Cas has been inviting him into it.

This time, it's Cas that feels guilty for something not his fault.

Castiel didn't want Dean to leave. And now, Dean has to stay for a while longer. Whatever else this mess does to their lives, he has to thank it for that.


	11. Chapter 11

It is 5:45 in the morning on a Monday, and Castiel Novak is in love.

Getting back to sleep after his entirely useless work alarm is unlikely, given this waking realization. He's pretty sure the only feasible way to process this development is the consumption of vast quantities of coffee and a great deal of 'brooding.'

Dean growls incomprehensibly at Cas's phone for interrupting their hard-earned slumber, staggers to the bathroom, uses the facilities, stumbles back to the bed and plants himself face-first and naked atop the sheets. He immediately drifts back to sleep with one arm thrown negligently around Castiel, fingers curled into his skin, head turned toward him on the pillow, and he begins snoring again softly within moments.

The fact that every aspect of this zombie-like behavior is endearing and fascinating is clear evidence of his earlier conclusion.

Castiel presses a kiss to Dean's forehead before slipping out of the bed.

xXx

It's 6:25 in the morning, Castiel has downed two cups of coffee, and he's still in love.

One would assume this realization would be warming, heartening, but the truth of the matter is that he's managed to make himself anxious. There are a dozen reasons why being in love with Dean, particularly after less than a week's acquaintance, is a bad idea. Castiel is however quite certain of the fact that love isn't an idea, it's a feeling, and therefore not ruled by rationality.

He has inextricably emotionally tied himself to Dean, and whatever his rational mind would tell him about the wisdom of that course of action, he's already there. He was already there last night, when they came home from the jail, Dean stripped him down and refused to allow him pajamas (you wore them all frikkin' day, man). They tumbled into the bed, too tired and drained after the day to do more than curl into each other to sleep, and Castiel was shaken enough by everything that had happened that he was content to just try and pull Dean as close as he could and hold him.

He was already there yesterday, when Dean texted to say he had no idea what they were doing. Neither does Castiel, still, but he knows what hewants. He just doesn't know if he gets to have it now that everything he wants is right in front of him.

He was probably already in love before that, but he can't claim this kind of certainty then. He is however fairly sure, as he stands in the doorway to his own bedroom watching Dean sleep, that he's looking at the man who is going to break his heart.

So he goes to forage breakfast for them.

xXx

The day has dawned bright and clear in the wake of yesterday's storms, and the sunlight seems to cling to Dean's skin, to paint gold and bronze highlights through the longer strands of Dean's hair, and to soften his features. When Dean is asleep, all of the pain he carries with him the rest of the time melts away. Awake, Dean Winchester is an undeniably handsome man, and the lines of worry and suspicious crease of his eyes somehow enhance that. Asleep, though, all of that is gone, leaving him devastatingly beautiful.

Dean would call him creepy for staring. Castiel's not sure how he's expected not to.

At some point during his medical career, Castiel had managed to acquire a tray. He's not exactly certain how that happened: probably he walked out engrossed in a book and with no idea what he was carrying, though one would expect he got looks on the bus carrying a tray. It's one of life's small mysteries. The fact that Castiel is dawdling and contemplating the origins and backstory of a tray in his own kitchen is more pertinent, because it means he's still not sure what he's doing.

Orange juice. Bottled water. Breakfast. Coffee. Hand towel. Silverware. Neatly placed on the purloined tray. He's stalling, watching the clock hit seven, because seven is a reasonable hour, because seven means he wasn't too eager for Dean to join him in the land of the living.

He makes it to 6:56.

xXx

Hands glide over Dean's skin, gentle over the bruises and more a caress than an actual massage, lips grazing the minor injuries as if a kiss could take away the pain as his mother claimed once when he was three and skinned his knees.

It's a good memory. And this is a very good way to wake up.

Dean hums a greeting sleepily into the pillow beneath him, and Castiel presses a kiss to the back of his neck in response, open-mouthed and gentle, hands smoothing down his arms from his shoulders, and it takes Dean a second to realize he's been gently pinned to the bed by Cas's weight.

He tenses almost immediately, eyes snapping open, and Cas shakes his head and drags his palms back up Dean's arms again, sweeping them down the line of his back. His murmur against Dean's skin seems to blend into the moment, a low drag, velvet rubbed the wrong way. "You're safe, Dean."

Trust me, it asks, hopeful and soothing, and Dean tries to make himself melt back into the bedding, but there is an Alpha pinning him face first into the bed and. . .

Castiel kisses between his shoulder blades, down his back, following the path his hands blazed first. Dean's legs are weighed down to the bed, Castiel draped over him, and now that he's awake he wants to roll over, to drop Castiel down beside him on the bed so that he's not under so much scrutiny, anything to get away from this focused attention.

"I watched you sleep." Castiel confesses into the skin of his back as hands cup his sides, sliding down over his bruised ribs with just enough pressure not to tickle the sensitive skin. "You look gorgeous and vulnerable that way." Dean twitches, and Castiel chases the movement across his muscles with his fingertips, easing it away. "I know you don't like that."

"Y'think?" Dean grumbles. "Gee, wonder why I wouldn't want to be weak around everyone."

"There's a difference between weakness and vulnerability, Dean." Castiel is moving down him slowly and Dean tenses again, expecting the obvious destination. He doesn't mind, per say, and he had made the offer of sex yesterday before the arrest and meant it, but waking up pinned and fucked... it's too close to everything he bottles up.

Castiel presses a kiss to the dip of his back, palms sliding warm and firm now down the defined muscles of his ass, and Dean realizes he's holding his breath, waiting for Cas to spread him open, to take. Instead, the hands keep sliding, down the bow of his legs, over the backs of his knees, and finally Cas is kneeling at his feet, hands massaging down the backs of his calves before thumbs press into the arches of his feet.

"I don't think I could ever see you as weak. You're one of the strongest people I've met." Dean snorts, dismissive, and Castiel stills behind him for a moment, and then unfolds, the solid line of him pressing Dean shoulders to toes into the bed again, his words a displeased rumble that Dean can feel move through him, like this, trapped beneath Castiel. "Do you always argue any compliment you're given, Dean?"

"Depends on the compliment. And who's giving it." Dean's abortive shrug beneath Castiel ends in hands grabbing his shoulders, a shift of weight, and now he's turned over to face Castiel from inches away, caged beneath him by Cas's arms. He should be more comfortable this way, no longer ass-up and face-down, but the blue eyes fixed on him are intense, too shrewd, too focused.

"You don't believe me. Why?"

Because if Cas knew better, he wouldn't want Dean. Because he's naive and idealistic enough to believe in God as some sort of benevolent Santa Claus to the world, and professionally looks for the best in people. Because the chemicals between them hit the Alpha hard the second they met, staring across the bar then shell shocked at the hospital. Because he's compromised himself for Dean, and he shouldn't have. Because he has been broken completely and ruined and not strong at all. Because Dean's just a used up Omega who...

Castiel's face crumples as he watches Dean in silence, his eyes scrunching closed, and he touches his fingertips to Dean's face gently. "I hate that they've done this to you."

He doesn't grant Dean the time to question that. Pressing his lips to Dean's forehead, he traces his fingers along Dean's hairline, then cards them through his hair, nails lightly scratching over his scalp. "You're beautiful."

Dean's heard that one before. Usually with a sneer. Pretty little bitch.

Fingers tug at his hair gently, and he's used to that with more force, but he accepts the kiss for the chance to shut Cas up for a moment. Cas seems to be trying to communicate something in the kiss, though, and maybe he always has been. It's never just been about the skill of his tongue and lips, it's been about the intensity, the honesty of it. "I love your mouth." He breathes the words into the hot cave of it, tongue dipping in to taste him again. Dean's heard all about his cocksucking lips, too, though.

Dean's hands against Cas's shoulders are captured gently in Cas's own, and he sits up, straddling Dean's hips and presses a kiss to each palm, and then laces their fingers together, bending to lay his head against Dean's chest and stretching their clasped hands out to either side of them on the bed. He's trapping Dean to the bed, but linking them together, restraining himself there as well. He mouths a kiss over Dean's heart, pulse strong beneath his lips, like he can somehow ease the scars on a battered soul, not just the bruises on an injured body. "Trust me for now, Dean. Please."

I'll never hurt you, Castiel promised in the car before he came here, a hand to Dean's face, and that is not a promise he can really keep. Because there's a lot of ways to hurt someone, and Dean learned from an expert that its not the physical pain that cuts the deepest, leaves the most devastating scars.

Closing his eyes, Dean clenches his jaw, brow furrowing, and reminds himself to breathe, slow and deep and controlled. Cas doesn't deserve the shit Dean brings with him, but Dean's just selfish enough that he doesn't want Cas to stop this. "Yeah. Okay, Cas... okay."

He forces himself to relax beneath Cas, and is rewarded with a smile, with another kiss to his chest that slides sideways, then, gently mouthing over his nipple, tongue flicking it experimentally. And that... yeah, that's good. He can definitely get behind that. Castiel takes his time, leaving their hands clasped together and mapping Dean's body with his mouth alone, teasing his nipples between teeth and tongue and then laying wet, open mouthed kisses against him, whispering compliments and praise into his flesh until Dean is writhing impatiently beneath him, ready to flip them over and get things started already.

Figures he got the only Alpha virgin in the world who could tune out a willing Omega trying to get him to fuck him already. "Cas..."

Castiel dips his tongue into Dean's navel briefly, trails the pointed tip down his stomach to the straining erection jutting insistently before him, and presses a kiss to the head, parting his lips around it just enough for Dean to feel the wet caress of his tongue. And then he looks up, a gaze that would be innocent to match his voice if his eyes weren't lust-darkened and heavy-lidded. "Yes, Dean?"

Dean's fingers tighten, his hands tight in Cas's grip; he brings his leg up to trap Castiel and flips them abruptly, taking their linked hands to pin Castiel's above his head. "Done teasing."

Castiel lays back against the pillows contently, shaking his head, and offers Dean a slight smile. "I told you. . ." Despite himself when Dean settles over him, he gives a shallow thrust of his hips that slides his cock along the crease of Dean's ass, the glide made easy by the slick of Dean's arousal. ". . . I don't tease."

This wasn't about winding Dean up. It wasn't about trying to make him squirm, make him needy; though there's a decidedly Alpha, masculine, nearly savage pleasure at knowing he has. Castiel wants to erase the hateful words he heard last night from Dean's memory. He wants to wrap his affection around Dean's heart and protect him from the scum like the men in the jail that threatened his mate, hurt him with their words and their crudeness, whether Dean wishes to admit it or not. He wants Dean as far gone from his past as he can get him, solidly in the present... with him. "Teasing means I wouldn't give you anything you want, Dean."

Arching up, he steals a kiss from Dean, and he braces his feet into the mattress again, rocking Dean forward and down to him. "What do you want,Dean?"

The quiet, broken sound that falls from Dean's lips is beautiful, perfect, the only way Castiel wants Dean to be wrecked ever again. And he did that, he brought him to that point. Dean snatches both of Cas's wrists in a one-handed grip, braces a palm against his chest and raises himself up abruptly, and in one sudden, smooth glide Castiel is there.

Castiel's entire body bows beneath Dean, head falling back, lips slack, eyes slamming shut, and dear God in heaven why did he wait so long? Dean's name is a broken moan, a prayer, a plea, and he can hear Dean react to it, but he can feel it too, Dean's filthy chuckle seems to tighten and flutter the wet heat around him. Dean's going to say something, going to tease or quip or banter and ignore the fact that he just completely and utterly changed Castiel's life and branded himself forever in this moment, and Cas won't let him, can't allow him to cheapen what this means to him. Surging up against Dean, Castiel fucks his hips upwards sharply to stop him, wrenches his hands free from Dean's grip, tangles his fingers into his mate's hair, and kisses him rough and bruising.

Dean tightens around him like a fist, and as good as it feels, as much as he wants to fuck him hard, knot him, pump him full and drive a claim into him with his seed and his teeth, mark him so he'll always remember, so that he will belong to him, Castiel has just enough presence of mind to know he won't, he can't...

He cannot allow himself to become just another Alpha to use Dean that way.

"Please..." He doesn't even know what he's asking for, now, as their lips part and he falls back against the pillows, forcing himself to stillness, his hands moving to frame the sharp line of Dean's hips, buried deep inside of his mate and rigid because he doesn't have the strength to be gentle if he starts to move. "Dean, please..."

Dean is beautiful this way, rising above him, hands planted on Castiel's chest, bare to the sunlight and Castiel's heated gaze. He's a god like this, some savage pagan creature with eyes like summer, that know everything, see everything, and Dean may be the one on his knees, but Castiel wants to worship him, give himself as an offering. Whatever it is that Dean sees in his face, in his willing submission, it pleases him. . . he strokes his hands comfortingly down Cas's sides and bends down to kiss him again, softer, gentling his desperation.

They'll have time, all the time in the world if Castiel has his way, for Dean to start to truly trust him. For him to be able to give in to those baser instincts. In three days Dean's heat will drive them both, strip away their last shreds of control. For now, Castiel wants Dean to have him, to show him how to be good for Dean. With the kiss and the comforting words, Dean begins to ride him slowly, raising himself off of his heels until he's almost free of Cas . . . and every time Castiel's body begins to protest the loss, every time he wants to thrust upwards to keep himself buried inside him, Dean meets him half-way, fucking himself back down sharply, adjusting the angle until he is gasping, dragging Castiel's cock along his channel, the friction of it overriding everything but need.

It takes Castiel's mind a moment to remember that he has hands, and a moment longer to participate, one hand to the small of Dean's back to brace him in his arched ride, to help him find that angle that punches all of the air out of him, and letting him set the rhythm for now, and he curls his other fist around Dean's cock, creating a deliberate counterstroke. The effect is immediate: Dean moans, raw and breathy, and Castiel feels the immediate and driving need to make pulling that sound from Dean as often as possible his life's mission.

His knot is swelling, insistent, and they're tied now. . . Dean can't go, can't leave him wanting. Castiel's so close and he's waited so long, and he wants to last, he wants to be good for Dean, but Dean is clenching down around him now, hot and slick and perfect and he can't stop. He doesn't realize he's biting down on his lip until Dean leans forward to kiss him breathlessly while Castiel pumps his fist along Dean's length, and they're soclose he can feel it, feel Dean pulsing around him, wanting, Dean's pre-come smearing against his fingertips. "Let it go, Cas. . ."

Cas's eyes snap open again, focused on Dean's, he drives his hips upwards instinctively, grinding his knot against Dean's prostate, releases his bruised lip from his teeth, and with a roll of his hips and an explosive moan, his orgasm hits him intensely, jolting through him like electricity.

Moments later, Dean slumps over him bonelessly, his own come painted across Castiel's stomach, and the angle tugs at Cas's knot uncomfortably for both of them. His nose against Dean's hair, he wraps both of his arms around his mate and rolls his hips again lazily with the next wave of his orgasm, before bracing himself against the mattress and reluctantly moving them up the bed, until he's half propped against the headboard with Dean seated in his lap and tight around his knotted cock, limbs coiled loosely around him and his face hidden against Cas's shoulder.

He can't see Dean's expression. He doesn't know how he is, if he's okay. Petting his hands along Dean's back, he nudges at the side of Dean's head gently with his nose, kissing his temple, flushed with nervousness, and his voice is low and hoarse from holding back so long. "I was. . . was that. . . good?"

Dean's rich, sated chuckle is answer enough and Cas relaxes, letting his hands fall to Dean's hips again, rocking him gently just to wring another quiet, breathless moan out of his mate and fresh load of come from himself.

". . . Yeah, Cas. Yeah, that was real good." Raising his head, Dean kisses the corner of his mouth and settles his arms around Cas's shoulders, circling his hips slowly just to see the reaction and smirk smugly, watching Cas with shining eyes through dark lashes. "Give me 'bout an hour and some breakfast, then we're doing that again."

Cas nods, eyes closing, slumping in place and moaning quietly at the next wave of pleasure Dean milks out of him, before letting one hand fall loose in a very lazy, abstract sort of gesture at the tray beside them and its covered drinks and food. "I got coffee and juice, and Jo left a note in the fridge and with half of a pie . . ."

He's not sure why that wins a lusty moan from Dean, or a downright filthy kiss, but he'll take it.

xXx

It is 10:00 in the morning and Castiel is still in love and now thoroughly, completely certain he's not a virgin any more. He doesn't want to move, doesn't want to think, and being pushed out of bed to shower has less appeal when he realizes that once Dean's clean he isn't planning on staying in there for another round. Something about hot water heaters having limits and unpleasantness of cold showers and muscle cramps from holding a position, and while Cas is certain he's probably right he didn't want to hear logic about it.

He doesn't want to get around. He doesn't want to go visit Dean's brother and talk legal issues, he wants to curl back up with Dean again and feed him pieces of pie off of his fork just to see the way his lips wrap around the tines and his throat bobs as he swallows and eyes flutter with pleasure. He wants to finger his come lazily back into Dean, wring another orgasm out of his mate while he recovers, and then slide into him again. He's not certain how it is that Dean's moving around when he feels like he could sleep for a year (save for rousing for more sex, but he's been teased for having a lot of pent up sexual urges to work through, and maybe there's something to that), but as he leans against the bathroom door with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair streaming water into his eyes, watching Dean walk to the dresser, he smugly realizes that the bowlegged Omega is still feeling the effects too.

"What're you smirking at?" Dean challenges, eyes narrowed, and Castiel shrugs, shakes his head, and pushes off of the doorframe to amble across the room, cup his hands to Dean's cheeks and kiss him softly.

"Nothing."

"Good. Clothes on, then. We gotta bring Ellen back her car, and I need to get the Impala to the garage. Sam'll talk to us there." Castiel hums wordless agreement and lets his hands drop to his sides again loosely, and Dean rolls his eyes and pulls open Cas's dresser for him. "The only way you could be less subtle is if you had a neon flashing sign that says 'I just got laid' pointing at you."

"Where do you think we could buy one of those?" The deadpan is completely worth the face he wins from Dean with that.

"Great. I created a nymphomaniac. Do you even own jeans, man?" Castiel shrugs, completely useless for answers until Dean glares at him. "Maybe one pair? I've worn a uniform of some sort or another since I started school. Catholic school. . ."

"Catholic school uniformed Castiel. Now there's an image I want to keep." Dean leers.

". . . then seminary, then priesthood, then army, then scrubs. I mostly have suits or slacks and button ups. Because you need those for interviews and consults and. . ."

"Yeah, yeah. I get it. You're a social train wreck. No cooking skills, no wardrobe, and you even go to bars in a churchgoing suit. That's not going to work in the garage." Dean digs into his bag, grabs a pair of jeans and a worn t-shirt and shoves them into Cas's hands. "Get a belt. It'll do."

"I'm wearing your clothes now." It's not a question, and Castiel considers it for a moment before perching on the edge of the bed, trying not to smile. "Isn't that better than a neon sign?"

"Shut up, Cas!" Dean calls, already dressed and stepping out of the bedroom to grab his shoes from by the door.

Castiel chuckles to himself as he gets ready. Maybe they do bicker, as the officer had claimed yesterday. But Castiel's enjoying it.

He's definitely in love.


	12. Chapter 12

The Kansas River through Lawrence is far from scenic—muddy, slow-moving, clogged with ash in the shallows and smelling of rotten fish and motor oil just outside of the city. It's not exactly a tourist attraction or a real-estate draw once you get out of the historic part of town, where the 'upper crust' of Lawrence (which really isn't saying all that much except they're stuck up, in Dean's opinion) want it picture perfect for themselves.

Winchester Automotive is about as far as you can get from the pretty brick buildings and tree-lined avenues, tucked among manufacturing facilities and run-down businesses.

The rains yesterday made the river swell for a time, dumping mud and debris and ash along the shoreline as it calmed, and Dean pulls a mud-caked, water-swollen boot out of the random detritus and stinking muck, holding it up by the laces for Cas with a smirk that is 90% bullshit, a mask that breaks Cas's heart because it's so practiced. "Whattaya think, size ten? Eleven?" He chucks it towards a rusted-through dumpster where it bangs hollow and loud, and then wipes his hands off on his jeans. Cas watches him sadly, hands loose at his sides, from atop the concrete wall that separates property from riverbank.

"Eh, what's it matter anyway. Welcome to the old homestead. Well, not the old homestead, that's pretty much. . ." Dean puffs a breath through his fingers, up in smoke. "But is what it is. Sam'll be here in a few minutes, maybe Jess and Jo too, I dunno. I'll see if I can't get started fixing up my car or digging out Dad's crap, unless Sammy insists we do this as a sit-down. I think better when I'm working on something so don't. . ." Dean looks up towards the sky, swallowing heavily, and he knows he's doing it again. The stupidly dutiful son he stopped being years ago. ". . . just whatever you see if we start digging around in there, don't judge my Dad too harshly, okay? He never really got over my mom."

Dean's good mood was fleeting once they left the shelter of Castiel's apartment: not because it was taken from him, but because it was packed away like a keepsake too fragile and precious to see the light of day and be exposed to a world of grief. And there is grief here, Castiel can tell. And there's pain, old pain he gets looking at the vandalized car and looking at this place that was his father's, but it's not Cas that he regrets, and so he'll be here for him, pull him back in when he can. Until then, he is watching Dean piece together his armor, a thick shell of sarcasm and self-deprecation that rings too true, too close to the problem it hides, the bleeding wounds of his shredded self-image that Castiel has only just begun to try and help mend.

When Dean gingerly climbs the steps back up to the top of the wall with him, clearly still feeling the effects of their morning activities, Castiel meets him at the top and enfolds him in an embrace, waiting until he can feel Dean relax into it before speaking, arms going around him in return. Castiel tucks his face into the bend of Dean's neck, trying to find him under the smell of the river beside them and the pungent soaps he prefers and the fabric softeners, and failing. He thinks it must be by design. Just another mask.

"Its okay, Dean. Nothing is going to affect my opinion of you."

Dean snorts, disbelieving again, and thumps a hand to Castiel's back as they hear a car running over the gravel drive, signaling the end of the embrace. "Yeah, give it time."

Castiel frowns at the sentiment, at Dean's back as he pulls away and straightens, and then sighs before following Dean slowly. He wants Dean to understand he isn't planning on running; that will take time.

"Just pull her into one of the bays, Sammy. I promised Ellen I'd tune her up since we're borrowing her. Unless you remember enough of what I taught you, can make yourself useful." Dean ducks into the bay now holding his car, snags a hand towel and snaps it at his brother's rear once he steps out of the Explorer. Sam shoots his brother an unamused expression at the teasing, which only makes Dean smirk as if that were the desired effect.

"Right, because I'm here being your lawyer, so clearly not making myself useful." Sam sighs, and looks around the garage instead, and Castiel gets the feeling that his mood is being as dramatically effected as Dean's by this place. "Let's go inside first, Dean. See how bad. I didn't want to bring Jess until. . ."

Dean's smirk dies on his face, and he nods slightly, understanding something Castiel doesn't.

From first glance, it seems that John Winchester was compulsively organized. There are no tools out of place, not a mess to be seen. Equipment and tools each have clearly designated places in toolboxes made to hold them, and it's almost compulsive in its militaristic precision. It's not until they trudge up the steps in the back of the garage, single-file behind Dean as he unlocks a door on the landing above, that he comprehends. . .

This wasn't just John's work. It was the Winchesters' home.

His impression of John's organization is modified within moments of slipping into the small kitchenette behind the brothers. The smell of stale liquor and mildew permeates the space, and he's suddenly glad that Jessica isn't there. He would like the chance to scrub it down himself before allowing a pregnant woman to poke around in this kitchen. He doesn't understand where they're going, why resolute footsteps keep them both going in the same direction within the tiny apartment carved out of what should in theory have been office space for the business below, but they don't stop until they reach a door, and exchange a look.

Dean opens the door, steps inside a closet-sized office, and Castiel finds signs of that compulsive nature again. He wished he didn't.

Papers line the walls, pictures of burned out buildings and what Castiel recognizes as autopsy reports, police records and suspect drawings, all pinned into place with map pins and linked together with colored thread. The pattern all spreads out from a space at the center of the far wall, and Dean strides across the room and halts there, hesitating a moment before carefully removing the pin from a single picture. A beautiful young blonde with her arms around a young boy, glowing in pregnancy, the colors of the photo softened and nearly washed out with time and neglect. "Dumb son of a bitch never took it down."

Sam looks to his brother, and Castiel understands that Sam never expected anything but this. There's sympathy and a bit of pity in his eyes, before Dean turns back to him, holding the picture carefully, and there are cracks in his mask, something raw to his voice. "Five years, Sammy. We got the guy five years ago, and he hasn't. . ."

Dean's eyes flick to Castiel, his jaw bunches as he cuts himself off and closes his eyes, and then he turns back to look at the wall, forcing himself to look, forcing himself to see if there are any more cherished mementos of his nearly nonexistent childhood tied up in this shit storm of death and obsession. "We should clear this crap out before anyone else comes to help. Then we'll do the legal thing."

Sam rests a hand on his brother's shoulder, squeezing it tightly. "Yeah. That works for me, Dean. Hey, Cas?" Castiel looks to Sam, and understands before he's asked what he's actually being asked to do. "I've got some boxes down in the Explorer, can you go get them for us?"

Sam Winchester is giving his brother time to recover. Allowing the two boys John Winchester left behind a moment to grieve not only over the loss of their father, but of their entire childhood, to an obsession that hadn't been cured or negated when they had been promised it would all be over as soon as it was solved.

Cas nods silently and turns, taking his time to get the boxes.

xXx

On the way back through the kitchen, where Castiel is making himself useful carefully emptying out the spoiled foods in the refrigerator, Dean snags a bottle of Jack without breaking pace and leaves the door down to the garage open after himself. Sam follows in his wake with his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, lingering beside Castiel as the doctor pushes himself to his feet slowly, listening to Dean's footsteps on the wooden stairs.

"Be patient with him, Castiel. I know you're not exactly meeting at a great time, but. . ." Sam sighs, and it blows an errant strand of brown hair out before him. "Dean's a great guy. This is dragging up a lot of bad stuff, and . . . I'm about to make it a lot worse."

It's a warning, a heads up of what's to come, and Castiel appreciates the gesture but not the implied question of whether it will affect his view of Dean. "Then we'll be there to help him through it."

Sam blinks, turning to look at Castiel as he finishes washing his hands at the sink, straightening as he dries them and meets Sam's measuring stare unwaveringly. He made. . . something of an impression on Sam last night, apparently, by hiring him. That was professional, however, and it was the idea that Castiel fundamentally hated the idea of rewarding rapists. Right now, in John Winchester's kitchen, Sam is not a lawyer: he is a protective brother, trying to see if Castiel is sincere.

"Nice clothes."

"Your brother determined that my usual attire wouldn't work for today's activities." Castiel tosses the paper towels into the trash, and wishes he didn't react so easily to minor embarrassment. Even if Sam can't smell sex on them given everything around them, there's no doubting that between the clothes and the blush, he doesn't need that neon sign. He raises his head, waiting for the challenge, eyes narrowed. He's not planning on denying anything, but he has no intention of asking for Sam'spermission.

"Uh-huh."

Sam flicks two fingers against the side of his neck, instead, and Cas claps a hand over the surprising sting of it.

"Word of advice. T-shirts don't cover that up."

Sam smirks to himself and follows his brother down the stairs, apparently content with having teased Castiel as his only answer to the turn in their relationship, and that's that. Their relationship is known, accepted by Dean's family, and the threats of the other day still stand without being repeated. Perhaps Sam doesn't think he needs to hear it again, and perhaps Sam is starting to understand that Castiel has no intention of harming his brother. Cas stares after him, hand over his neck, attempting to determine which. As soon as Sam's gone, though, he twists and tries to see the indicated spot himself, and eventually catches his reflection in the window down into the garage.

Dean has sucked and bitten a mark into the bend between his neck and shoulder, and it is as obvious in the t-shirt as if he had put a collar around Castiel's neck. His dress shirts, even his flannel pajama shirts would hide it. But Dean most certainly noticed before they left, and took enjoyment from knowing that not only does Castiel look well fucked, he looks claimed.

Castiel rolls his eyes fondly and decides that next time he's not going to hold back quite as much for Dean's sake.

"C'mon, Cas! We haven't got all day," Dean calls up to him from below, and Castiel gives the counter one last swipe-down before following them down into the garage.

xXx

"Hand me that masking tape." Dean commands Castiel, gesturing blindly in the direction of John's workbench as he circles his car, only half listening to Sam right now. He's already changed the oil and checked under the hood of Ellen's Explorer, poking around until he was satisfied, and now he's preparing his baby to be sanded, crouching down to take the coarse grain to the words first, to strike the slurs out before he smoothes the metal skin of his car to perfection again, buffs out all the scars to leave her shining.

Sam took pictures, first, documented everything, and it's leaving him feeling exposed and annoyed. Irrationally, it also makes him feel as if he's let his Baby down somehow, her picture being taken all screwed up because of him, and consequently disappointing his father who gave the Impala to him. Just because he realizes it's irrational to feel guilty on behalf of a car and a dead guy doesn't mean he can change it, though.

"You can't tune me out, Dean. I know you don't want to talk about this, but. . ."

"I got the lawyer part already, Sam. I know you know what you're doing. Why don't you get to whatever it is you're biting your nails about and tiptoeing around." He may not understand everything of legal jargon, but Dean damn sure knows when Sam is being evasive. The stricken look on his little brother's face confirms it.

"Okay. . ." Running his hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face, Sam props a hip against the side of Ellen's car and sighs. ". . . Legally, I'm pretty sure I've got this in the bag. I can handle the criminal charges for you, Dean, that's not a problem. Clear cut self-defense. Cas though wasn't in any danger, so we're going to be playing with Good Samaritan laws, which means. . . well, it means we have to prove he was just in it to help."

"Which he was." Dean drawls, accepting the tape and shooting Cas a wink in thanks, pausing to take a pull from the whiskey on the toolbox beside him. He knows where his brother is going, though he's desperately trying not to think about it.

"I know he was, but . . ." Sam blows his breath out in a huff. "They're going to use it as an excuse to go after the two of you. Character assassination. In Cas's case they're going to try and prove that he's prone to this. . ."

"And they're going to pull my service record, and my dishonorable discharge." Castiel supplies Sam, resigned to the fact that hiring Sam as an attorney means that he's going to have to reveal things to his mate's brother that he would rather leave in the dark. Sam pulls a notebook with crumpled edges out of the back pocket of his jeans and scribbles a note to himself to look it up. "There was no court martial, but if they were able to find out my family they're going to find my duty record. If they begin looking for people related to that, they will go for Lt. Colonel Naomi Ascalon, the Battalion Commander for the Company with which I was deployed. Her representation of what happened would. . . not paint me in a flattering light, and it would lend itself to their work. I would recommend you speak to Captain Anna Milton, whose report spoke on my part, and perhaps some of the others from the platoon . . . the First Sergeant, or the soldiers who I acted on behalf of."

Sam is looking at Castiel questioningly: he has no context yet for any of this. So far as Castiel is aware, it's potentially the first time he's been told that he had any affiliation with the military to begin with. Closing his eyes, he sighs. "Please just. . . ask me questions once you determine what you need to know, and if it will play into their tactics. I'm not attempting to conceal anything from you that would hinder our defense."

He just doesn't want to have to speak of it, if it's going to have no bearing.

Both of their eyes swing to Dean, and he huffs a bitter, broken laugh around the bottle of Jack, and then gestures in their direction with it, a sanding square clenched in his hand. "I know what you're trying not to say, Sam. Same shit, different day. They want to prove he's a nutcase, and they want to prove I'm a whore who was asking for it."

"Dean. . ." Castiel shifts, going to move closer to him, to try and bolster him emotionally, but Dean shakes his head abruptly, stepping back, keeping himself at arm's length as if afraid to be touched.

"Don't. Just. . . don't." Dean is watching his brother without meeting Castiel's eyes, a plea in his fixed stare on Sam. "No chance of getting them to just. . . drop this shit, Sam? You said you can get me outta the criminal charges, but that still leaves Cas, and it still leaves the bullshit lawsuit."

"And our countersuit." Sam agrees, hazel eyes wide and mournful, fixed on Dean. He knows where his brother's mind has gone. And if he could just wave his hand and make everything go away, he would in a heartbeat. Perhaps even if it meant those assholes getting away with it, legally. Anything to make Dean not have to live through it again. "I can counter the victim blaming bullshit, Dean, but it's still going to come up. . ."

Something slides into place in Dean's expression, hard and forbidding. Victim. Both of the other men in the room see the word affect him, see him shut down at hearing it. "Fuck that, Sam. You know what you're going to have to do. You're going to talk to Bobby and to Ellen, because they were both there after those assholes put me in the hospital, and that's going to stir up all the old shit, and fine. I can handle that, I handled it then. But that isn't the problem. If they're digging, they're digging intoeverything, and that means. . ."

"Alastair." Sam agrees softly, putting word to it. The expressions that chase their way across Dean's face are terrifying and thengone, hardened into stone. Hand clenched around the bottle of liquor, he drops the sanding square down onto the tool box, and shakes his head slightly. Castiel drops his hand back to his side, his attempt to reach out to Dean rebuffed as he curses bitterly, and shakes his head again.

"No."

And that's it. He walks out of the open door of the garage and across the gravel to the riverside, sitting down heavily on the concrete wall and tipping his head back to take a deep pull from the liquor.

"What just happened here?" Castiel asks softly, into the silence that falls as both Alphas stare out at the distant, broken figure of Dean sitting in the sunlight looking out at the water. It should be such a peaceful image, but it carries with it so much pain in the set of his shoulders.

Sam closes his eyes and sighs softly. "Castiel, if you're serious with Dean. . ."

"I am."

". . . and you're stuck in this legal crap with him, it means things are going to come out that neither of you probably wants the other to know. I don't want you blindsided, and I don't want him to be either. If you're hiding anything from him, you come clean and you do it before I find the information, or I will damn sure make you regret it. I represent you, and I'm not going to leave you high and dry with this case. You helped my brother, I'm going to help you. But if you're lying to my brother about anything and I catch wind of it, those assholes won't be the only one to regret it."

"I have no intention of hurting your brother. I care about him, Sam." Castiel replies quietly, still watching Dean without challenging the threat. He's heard it before, or a variation, and he realizes that Sam is leading up to something else, clearing the air for himself before he tackles what just happened. "Help me understand this, Sam? Does this have something to do with the four months he was missing?"

"It has everything to do with it." Sam confirms sadly, and drags a palm down his face, before picking up a sanding square himself, crouching down to attack the hateful things said about his brother carved into one of the few things his brother has of his own, the only physical property he cherishes. He's taking his cues from Dean, now, keeping himself busy.

"Five years ago, my dad and my brother helped hunt down the guy who killed Mom. It was an unofficial investigation, and it just. . . well, you saw. Dad was consumed by it. Our entire childhood, Dean pretty much had to raise me himself. It was supposed to be over then, y'know? Mom's killer was gone. Dean was trying to . . . I don't know. Dean's been trying to fix our family for years, and Dad wasn't going to move on. Didn't know how to, I guess. . . it'd been decades of that being the only thing he really cared about. They were at a bar, Dad was drinking and it got nasty. He could be a pretty vile drunk. Dean ended up leaving with someone, and Dad just figured he was pissed off and picking up someone at the bar to work off some steam, I guess. That's what he said, at least."

Sam closes his eyes, and turns to brace his back to the Impala, sliding down the car to sit down on the oil-stained concrete. Castiel frowns down at him there, torn on which Winchester to watch.

"We'd spoken recently, about what happened. . . saw each other for a little bit at Stanford, when he came by to tell me it was done. He was so hopeful. I called a few weeks later. We called each other every month at least, and I called to check in on him, to tell him about college and about going to meet my girlfriend's family, and he didn't answer. I figured he was busy, he'd call me back. Didn't cross my mind to ask Dad, until he just. . . didn't call back. Not that day, not the next day. Come to find out he'd been gone for weeks."

"I flipped out. Came home. Big blowout with Dad, which. . . yeah, from me that wasn't saying as much, my Dad and I butted heads all the time. I called everywhere. Police departments, morgues, hospitals, missing persons hotlines. I dropped it all over the internet, I called everyone I could think of, I shook a lot of trees . . ." Sam closes his eyes with a bitter laugh. "You know, half the contacts I've made, the success I have at this job, it's because I was desperately looking for my big brother and I met a lot of people. Four months, Castiel. God, I was convinced he was dead, and I just couldn't. . . I needed to know."

Castiel takes a seat on the hood of the Explorer, high enough up that he can watch Dean, ill at the thought of him disappearing and at the naked pain on Sam's face, the understanding of what this must have done to him then, for him to look so upset now.

"We got a call from Michigan. They thought they recognized Dean from the stuff online, and I was back at school running the search from my dorm, barely holding it together but there because Dean had put everything into getting me into that school. It was the life he wanted for me. Dad took the tip. He took a lot of the tips. Hell, it was a new mission for him, something he could throw himself behind like he did Mom's death, and I think he felt guilty about it too."

"Dad and Dean never told me anything about Detroit. Dean was. . . he was just wrecked, and then he shut down completely. Wouldn't talk to me about it at all. They arrested a guy for abducting him. Alastair. And then he was free. I didn't understand it, didn't know why. Dean called me a few weeks later, drunk and devastated, halfway between Lawrence and Sioux Falls. Telling me he knew how Alastair got off, how he got away with it."

"Dad had mail that day. A check, written to him here, for Dean's time. Alastair twisted it all around, made it so that Dean was just. . . just some kind of employee. He wrote a check to my father for his Omega son, like Dean was just property he'd borrowed. And Dad said something stupid, and . . ."

Castiel is off of the hood of the car, halfway out of the garage, and Sam pushes himself to his feet, striding after him to rest a hand on Cas's shoulder and stopping him with a vice grip on his arm. "Where are you . . ."

"I told you we would be here to help him through it, Sam." Castiel turns on the gravel drive, blue eyes determined. "Please let go of me." Weakness and vulnerability. It's the conversation from this morning all over again. And now he has context for every flinch, every time Dean tenses, every time his face twists in self-disgust, how he could shrug off what was slung at him in the jail cell, how he needs to be in control, and how he thinks of himself as broken. Now he understands. And it's terrible. It's heart-wrenching. And he is not going to leave Dean alone with this.

"I'm his brother, Castiel, and if he's not going to talk to me about it. . ."

"You're his brother, so he's not going to talk to you about it. He wants your respect, and he doesn't want your pity. He doesn't want you to think of him differently, or see him as weak. He might not speak to me about it, either, but I am not going to leave him alone with it." Raising his hand, he rests it over Sam's on his arm, a request to be released rather than a demand. "Please let me go to him, Sam."

Castiel feels strangely exposed, stripped down by the intensity of Sam's stare, and he hasn't said the words, only realized it when he woke, but he can see understanding slot into Sam's eyes. He's no less in love with Dean now than he was this morning. He just wishes he was a great deal better at hiding himself now.

Sam's hand drops off of Castiel's arm, and he doesn't wait for him to respond, to say something about whatever he just determined for himself. His feet crunch on the gravel of the drive, and he can see Dean tense, see him take notice of the approach and draw another swig of the drink for himself. Castiel stands silently beside Dean where he sits for a moment, looking out over the river with him, this view that Dean has had since childhood. He must have come to this place hundreds of times to think.

"He told you, right? I mean, you gotta know before someone else brings it up." When Castiel doesn't respond fast enough, Dean snorts bitterly. "Services Rendered. That's what it said on the check. Decent amount of money, too. I was worth something after all. . . Guess I can't fault Dad for cashing it in the end. They start digging for things to use against you in court, or me, or whatever. . . that'll probably turn up. Hell, Alastair probably paid taxes on my wages. And it got cashed. Done deal. Just another Omega whore." Castiel's eyes scrunch closed and he lowers himself down, sitting beside Dean now with his legs hanging over the edge of the wall, just a short drop down to the muddy shore, the hands braced on the wall between them close enough to touch.

"Dean. . ."

"You ever actually been around an Omega in heat, Cas?" Dean asks, seemingly apropos of nothing, and his head swings to look at Castiel beside him. His eyes are impossibly green and shining as if he'd been crying, though Castiel sees no other evidence of tears. "There's a reason they don't want us to have a lot of jobs. They say shit about unreliability, and hormonal, and all that but it basically comes down to people around us want to fuck and at least during our heat, we want to fuck them. There's control. I'm good at controlling myself, but it gets harder farther into your heat you get. Three days, three days I can handle, but it still makes you a little crazy."

Turning back towards the water, he lifts the bottle to his lips and stops, staring at it, his hand shaking faintly. "They've got drugs that kick that off. The shit's illegal to use if you're not a doctor, it's for people trying to have a baby, or I guess the farms, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to get. Hell, people can get animal tranquilizers and slip it into drinks, what the hell makes the world think they can't get anything else they want to get ahold of. Even then, they use it once. One time thing. Three days."

Castiel wraps an arm around Dean's shoulder, pulling him close to his side, and gives him a moment without staring, looking down at the threadbare knees of Dean's jeans, silent, letting him speak for now, a solid, warm presence at his side.

"Four months. He wanted to break me in. Carve me into something else. Made a lot of money doing it, too, I'm sure. And I fought it much as I could, I did. But then I just couldn't do it anymore, Cas. He tried to get me to ask them for it, and God help me. . . by the end there, I did."

Castiel coils himself around Dean, arms hugging his shoulders as if he can protect Dean from the past, from the pain that has him crying silently, but he doesn't try to stop the words no matter how much they hurt both of them. He wishes he could rewind this day, start over again, keep Dean with him and happy in the apartment, keep him from having to face this as well as his father's death, as well as the criminal charges and the attack of his childhood.

"I remember everything, Cas. I remember too damn much."


	13. Chapter 13

Sam is tucked between the Explorer and the tool bench waiting when they finally return from the riverside, and for a moment Castiel selfishly wishes he had gone back to the hotel, left them there. He knows that once Dean sees his brother he'll pull away. Distance himself. Reconstruct the careful walls that shore him up; anything to get rid of the frankly dumbstruck expression on Sam's face at the fact that his elder brother let himself accept comfort, and actually speak to someone about what was bothering him.

Castiel has taken enough confessions, been a listening ear in enough bad situations, heard people's prayers and their fears; he realizes that the last thing Dean needs right now is to feel like he's being gaped at for showing signs of vulnerability.

The younger Winchester catches Castiel's eye, registers his warning glare, and then Castiel can see him pull his own thoughts back into place as well, putting aside his questions and his surprise. He closes the hatch of Ellen's car before moving, giving Dean time to know he's there, to square his shoulders beneath Castiel's arm and raise his chin, stubborn, straight-backed and proud.

It's an intricate dance; the Winchesters are practiced at letting each other set boundaries, and Castiel is a little envious of how easily it comes to them. He had that once. Silent conversations and complete understanding of the other's thoughts without voicing them aloud.

He stands back and lets them have their moment, squelching that line of thought as he lets his arm drop from around Dean, watching as Dean takes a nonchalant pose against the side of his car, one foot up on the tape-edged curve of her fender, arms crossed over his chest.

"I'm in." Dean's voice is low, gruff, but strong. "No matter what shit they dig up. Let's nail them to the wall, Sammy."

Castiel ducks his head and smile faintly, and if Sam weren't here he would kiss Dean. He has no idea how Dean Winchester everconsidered himself weak.

". . Yeah, Dean. Yeah, we can do that."

xXx

"Alright. I ought to go rescue Jess from Ellen and Jo now, and you should get out of here." Sam stretches as he pushes himself off of one of the boxes in the now mostly packed living room, dragging his forearm over his forehead. The open windows do little to cool the room, the air conditioner in the bedroom window down the hall does nothing to help the rest of the apartment, and even the breeze off of the river is humid and sticky. Packing up John's apartment while they worked was Dean's idea (get whatever the hell crap you want outta here before you leave, Sammy) and kept all of them busy while Sam laid out the process for them, and the ground rules. "Early flight back. You still gonna be my ride to the airport?"

"Taxi extraordinaire, that's me. Pick you guys up in my baby, you can show Jess what a real car's like instead of that foreign hybrid piece of crap you drive in California. You're gonna be back, though, right?" Dean is sprawled, back to the wall, a cold bottle of beer held to the side of his face and his bow legs akimbo in the open space of the living room, a few feet away from where Cas slowly pushes himself to his feet again.

"My 'hybrid piece of crap' gets like sixty miles to the gallon in the city, Dean, how's the Impala do for you?" Sam rolls his eyes, snorting. "I'll be back as soon as the judge sets a date, or sooner if I have to. I just wanna get Jess settled back in, put in as much time at the law office as I can beforehand, in case things go long down here, and get Charlie set doing her technical miracles for me, pulling up everything we might need. You . . ." Sam kicks at his brother's ankle lightly, pushing it out of his way as he gets closer ". . . try not to get arrested again. The whole point of having legal advice is to take the legal advice."

Dean's smart-assed salute turns into a middle finger and a smirk, but he lets Sam pull him to his feet and engulf him in a hug. "There's a reason it's called advice and not orders, Sammy."

It's been an interesting change to witness, these two men acting like brothers, like the center of each other's worlds, comfortable in each other's space. They haven't forgotten the breakdown of that morning, everything is still raw and fresh: John's death and obsession, the assault of fifteen years ago and the abduction five years past, but they're doing something about it, now.

Dean claps Sam on the shoulder sharply, signaling the end of the hug, and Sam squeezes him one last time before stepping back. Whatever they have tomorrow at the airport, this is the real goodbye: Castiel stays quiet, happy to let them forget him for a moment, to observe what these men must be like when not surrounded by death, and it's a moment before Sam turns to him. "See you tomorrow morning, then?"

The assumption that Castiel will be with Dean and should be with Dean is gratifying, but Castiel shakes his head and offers his hand to Sam. "I have an appointment to be fired tomorrow morning. It was good to meet you, Sam. And thank you for. . ."

Castiel finds himself pulled in by the hand for a hug, and blinks in surprise at the suddenness of the gesture, awkwardly patting Sam on the back until Dean guffaws a laugh. "Yeah, okay, that's enough chick flick moments, Sam. You've got your girlfriend, paws off my boyfriend."

"Thank you. And take care of him." Sam's voice is low enough that Dean can't hear, and then he's pulling back, raising a hand to wave goodbye at both of them. "Yeah yeah Dean. Whole world knows you have dibs now. More advice for you to take or ignore, Cas: wear a tie or something for your meeting. And keep notes, too. If they are firing you because of the charges..."

"Out, Sammy. Legal talk later, you're off the clock now." Dean tetches, walking Sam down the steps. Castiel gathers up the beer bottles and tosses them into the recycle, where the glass clinks against the multitudes more gathered from throughout the house. It's concerning for a moment, and he frowns down at the addition to this shrine to alcoholism, before strong arms wrap around his shoulders, pulling him back against Dean in a loose grip.

"Hi." Dean sounds a little uncertain now that they're alone, and Castiel twists in his arms to look at him, resting his palms against Dean's back, chest to chest and face to face as Castiel cants his head slightly to the side, attempting to read him.

"Hello, Dean."

"So damned formal." Dean offers a smile that seems close cousin to a grimace, and Castiel tightens his arms around Dean. "I uh. . . I dunno. I feel like I should be apologizing for this morning." Castiel tenses in place, eyes narrowing, and Dean stumbles on. "I'm clean. I mean, after. . . I don't want you to have to worry about that, after what we. . . I mean, I got tested."

"Dean, stop. I don't want you to 'apologize for this morning.' I don't want you making apologies for what happened in the past and most certainly not for this morning." Dean looks as if he's going to argue, as if he's going to say something smartassed and bitter and self-deprecating, and so Castiel doesn't let him. He kisses him once, hard and brief, just long enough to get the point across about attempting to speak over him, then resumes talking as he begins walking Dean backwards, across the floor and deeper into the kitchen. "This morning was . . . a revelation, Dean. It was amazing. You were amazing."

Dean huffs a bitter, broken laugh.

"Yeah, well, had a lot of practice at . . ."

Dean's back hits the refrigerator abruptly, Castiel pressed into him to hold him there, a hand across his lips and face inches away. No. He is not going to listen to Dean speak of himself that way, not going to let him take away Castiel's joy at sharing that with him. Standing well within Dean's personal space, face to face, he meets Dean's eyes evenly, waiting for him to understand that, waiting for the slow, careful nod of acceptance from Dean.

When he drops his hand away, Dean surges forward against his restraining grip to kiss him, and that is better. That is so much better than the alternative. He returns the kiss with interest, chasing the taste of rich alcohol on Dean's tongue, hands dropping to Dean's hips as he holds him in place, but he didn't account for his hands. Nimble fingers slip Castiel's belt loose before he recognizes the danger, and then Dean's hand is abruptly between them, the slightly too-large borrowed jeans letting Dean plunge his hand into Castiel's pants and palm him through his boxers, leaving him moaning Dean's name as he tries to tug back away from the kiss to find Dean's other hand suddenly knotted in his hair, keeping him there.

Dean's words husk across his lips, his breath hot and intoxicating. "You like me here. Like this." Dean rocks his hips forward indicatively, keeping his hand between them, separating them, but giving Castiel the slow drag of his fingers over the cotton and tight press of his palm. "Have since we kissed against the wall."

There's definitely truth to that: Castiel's heart is hammering in his chest, and he pulls at the belt loops of Dean's jeans, pressing them impossibly closer, biting at Dean's lower lip lightly.

"So stop holding back, Cas." Dean challenges, yanking back at Castiel's hair to pull him away, green eyes fever bright. There are warning bells in Castiel's mind, and there's Dean's hand slipping into his boxers, and these two things are entirely at odds with each other. Dean is trying to provoke him, trying to pull something out of him, and he doesn't know what. Everything so far has been about letting Dean take control, but he's trying to break Castiel's, and. . .

Dean's hands shove Cas's boxers clear, the heavy weight of his belt drags the jeans to the floor, and then Dean is jacking a hand down his length in the middle of the kitchen, in full sight of the windows into the abandoned garage, a dare in his eyes. And it feels good, wrenching a moan from Castiel, and Dean knows the effect he's having. "C'mon, Cas."

Dean's wrist is in his hand restrainingly, Dean's chest pressed to the refrigerator now with Castiel's body flush against his back, and he barely remembers the motion that brought him there, only that he's breathing hard and trying to pull his thoughts back together. He wants Dean. Wants to bend him over and take him face down against the counter, fuck into him and tie him on his knot just like that, for teasing him. That's his instincts trying to take control, that's the Alpha part of his brain that generally has only that one objective, and is elated at having found its mate. But Dean is playing with him, and he doesn't understand the rules or the goal. "What do you want from me, Dean?" What is he trying to make Castiel become, in this?

Another one of them?

Hiding his face against Dean's shoulder blade, he releases his wrist and cages Dean in place with one palm on either side of him against the refrigerator. The denim of Dean's jeans is harsh against his naked erection, but can't pull back, not until he understands. But he can smell Dean, now; he's aroused but tense, afraid, and Castiel doesn't like that. The push of his hips grinds against Dean through his clothing, and Castiel knows Dean's pressed tightly enough to the refrigerator door that he will be feeling the pressure too. He can hear the gasp it drags out of him, the hint of pain to his pleasure. "Dean, tell me what you want? I am not. . . I am not going to hurt you, Dean."

Dean's hands, now free, slide behind him: one pressed to the curve of Castiel's ass, one awkwardly cupping back against his hip, and he pulls Castiel into another dry thrust against his clothed ass. "Like this, Cas. . . Just let it go."

His hands fumble over the button of Dean's jeans before he peels them down his mate's legs, impatiently toeing off his own shoes to kick both of their pants out of the way, and he can feel Dean's slick now as his erection drags along his ass, the backs of his thighs with the attempt to disrobe without moving too far apart. Dean presses his forehead to the refrigerator door, legs spreading in invitation, his body presented for Castiel to take. . .

And he can't right now. Not like this. Not with Dean's eyes shut tight, his face turned away, just letting Castiel have whatever he thinks his Alpha wants.

Snatching Dean's arm, he spins Dean abruptly to face him, hooks a hand into the bend of his knee, and drives up into him. Hot, slick heat surrounds him, and the angle is a bit wrong, and he's not going to be able to keep this up, but it's worth it to see Dean's face, see his green eyes snap open in surprise at the change in position, at finding himself face to face with Castiel.

"Look at me, Dean."

Dean is perfect, but he needs Dean here with him, not locked away in his memories.

"You're here. You're with me. . ." Dean's eyes slide closed again, and Castiel cups his free hand to Dean's face, hitching Dean's leg around his waist as best he's able to do so, his entire body involved in pinning Dean against the sturdy old block refrigerator, his feet braced wide to let him piston into Dean, instinct taking over. "Open your eyes, Dean."

He punctuates the growled command by taking Dean's hips in his hands and driving into his mate, dragging from him a startled moan, and now Dean's arms are around his shoulders, helping balance him, hands pressing into his skin, and now there are eyes fixed on his face. "Cas. . ."

"Yes." Yes, that is precisely what he wants Dean to focus on; on him. Arms cinching around Dean, he stumbles backwards and manages to find the chair at the table. Sitting down on it, Dean's thighs splayed open wide around him, now he can control the thrusts with his hands on Dean's hips, Dean's feet hooked around the back of the seat.

Castiel can't help setting a bruising pace now that he can keep it up, burying himself into Dean each time and pulling out almost immediately; he can feel the wet catch of his knot beginning to form, Dean's body's growing reluctance to release him, and his name on Dean's lips, increasingly desperate. Dean's blunt fingers bite into his shoulders hard enough to bruise, hard enough to feel the scrape of his nails, and he finally plunges himself home, clamping his hands down on Dean's hips to keep him pinned in place for his knot, and surges forward to kiss Dean.

They stay like that, Castiel's kiss gentling in time until he's peppering Dean's face with them, his neck, his jaw, murmuring comfort and reminders that Dean is there, with him, and safe, Dean rumbling assurance that he knows.

If they keep each other there longer than the knot takes to recede, no one but them ever need know. And both would maintain it was to comfort the other.

xXx

It takes longer to get back to working on his car than Dean would like, though he's never complained about too much sex before. Castiel watches him—ostensibly to learn how to work with cars, but mostly because he does that anyway, and because he's worried whether he wants to admit it or not. About the hospital firing him. About Dean's issues.

They pass the night on Dean's old mattress within John's apartment, a sleeping bag thrown over it and the window air conditioner cranked up completely, a rattle and hum that he didn't realize he'd missed when he left it behind until he had it again.

For the first night since taking over Castiel's bed, Dean has the nightmares again, waking silent and tensed and alert. He doubts the mattress has anything to do with it; too many skeletons have been shook free from the closet for him to escape the effects completely.

Still unconscious, Castiel tugs him closer, head resting on Dean's chest and arms thrown around him, and while Dean has trouble getting back to sleep at least he isn't searching the darkened room for threats.


	14. Chapter 14

"Just. . . damnit, Cas, just stop it and come here." Someday, Dean is going to be able to sleep in past seven AM, and on that day he's going to be fucking ecstatic. Every single day, since he first got the call about his father's accident, it's been early wakeup calls and days that last from sunup until well after sundown. He'd lament how much that sucked if Castiel apparently wasn't such a fan of morning sex that they were scrambling now to try and get anywhere on time. Between the "fuck me" Omega pheromones and the Alpha knotting, the concept of 'quicky' seemed to fly out the window the second they started. Dean couldn't exactly regret that (though he might, given he was going to be sitting upright in the car two hours) but that left them tearing across town to Castiel's apartment to get him ready before he missed the bus to his disciplinary hearing. And led to short-tempered muttering. "How can you wear a suit every damned day and not know how to tie a tie?"

"Clip-ons in school, and a clerical collar in. . ."

Dean glares at Castiel, planted in front of him in the middle of Cas's living room with the tie in his hands, until Cas catches the point that the question was rhetorical and snaps his mouth shut mid word. His blue eyes grow wide and earnest as if he's trying to garner sympathy for having never bothered to learn some basic common sense crap because it didn't directly have to do with work. Work that he seems to have always defined himself by, and was likely going to be unemployed from in a matter of hours. Guilt twists another knot into Dean's guts, and he sighs quietly and resumes straightening Castiel's tie, hands gentle but efficient. "Just because the end's under the jacket doesn't mean it should be on backwards, Cas. There." Raising his hand, he checks Cas's hasty shave with a swipe of the backs of his fingers down his face, a quick caress that has everything to do with the task at hand, and nothing to do comforting each other's obvious anxiousness.

Cas leans into it anyway, eyes closing, and that ruins the attempt to make it just part of getting ready.

"Alright. Jacket on. Grab a comb or something, too, you look like you fell out of a porno. You got your cell? You call me as soon as you know something, or text me while you're waiting. . . I want to know what's going on, you got me?"

"I've got you." Castiel rumbles in response, eyes opening again, and he doesn't bother pretending that he's merely repeating the words back as confirmation that he heard Dean's orders. Castiel has Dean now, and that in his mind makes the rest of this worth it.

Damnit.

Dean kisses him, because he can't not with that kind of sentimental crap being thrown at him, the naked affection in Castiel's eyes that Dean doesn't deserve. And then he grabs Cas by the tie and drags him out of the apartment, because they need to go or Sam will miss his flight and Castiel will be late for his own damned professional funeral and because Dean doesn't want to have to think too hard about what Castiel's saying here.

"Wait." Cas digs his feet in and pulls free from Dean's leashing to step back into the apartment and dig through the entry table's drawer while Dean rocks impatiently on his heels.

"C'mon, Cas, we don't have all day. If you can't find a comb just frikkin dunk your head in water or something when you get there and. . ."

"Here." Castiel pops back out of the apartment, letting the door close behind him again, and catches Dean by the hand. And no, Dean's not going to be the handholding in public type, thank you very much, there's a line where it's just chick-flick, and he refuses to cross it because goddamnit he doesn't care if his body decided he's plumbed both ways, and he likes guys as much as he does chicks, he's not a. . .

Castiel folds Dean's hand around an apartment key, and if it weren't for the fact that Dean's good at reading people and Castiel's starting to become an open book to him, stoicism or not, he'd think Castiel didn't realize the magnitude of this gesture. "In case you finish at the airport before I'm ready to be picked up. Make yourself at home, Dean. Please."

Without giving him a chance to respond, Castiel steals a quick kiss and takes the stairs down two at a time, leaving Dean staring after him.

"You're going to be late, Dean. You should hurry."

He doesn't know what to say to that. Which is why Cas didn't give him a chance to try and respond, shrugging on his oversized and unseasonable trench coat, striding toward the bus stop at the corner.

Dean frowns at his back in confusion until he remembers his deadline, slips into the Impala and floors it in the opposite direction as the bus pulls away.

xXx

"You're checking your texts every five minutes, Dean." Sam drawls from the back seat somewhere between Lawrence and Kansas City, and Dean drops the phone back to his lap and puts his hand back on the wheel, but he knows he's been caught. In the rearview, Sam looks painfully sympathetic, and it's enough to make Dean roll his eyes and reach over to turn the music on.

"You're worried about him." Jessica is smiling at him, understanding shining in her eyes, and hell that's even worse than Sam because he can't just tell her to shut up with uncomfortable observations and knowing looks the way he can his little brother. "I think it's kind of sweet."

"It's not. At best the guy's getting reamed right now because of me, and at worst he's losing his job. I was just hoping I'd get some news about it by now." Dean grumbles, shoulders drawing up as he stares fixedly out the front window, weaving them through highway traffic now as an excuse not to have to talk.

"Dean, he was doing the right thing. You know that. It's not your..."

"Fault, Sammy?" Dean interrupts, scorning the attempt at comfort. "He wouldn't be in this position if it weren't for me. I picked that fight at the Roadhouse the night before. If I'd been paying attention when I left the hospital, and they wouldn't have gotten the drop on me."

"That's not how he, Ellen or Jo tell it." Figures the lawyer was already collecting statements. No one but Dean seems to realize that he began things at the Roadhouse; but he's sure now that he pushed it, made sure it would become physical, a chain of reactions that began with his hand around that guy's throat and ended with Castiel getting fired for him. That fight outside the hospital happened because he couldn't just sit down and drink his drink and ignore the asshole. Because he can't let things go.

"Just trust me, Dean. I can turn this around." Sam's leaning forward, almost into the front seat, and Dean pushes his head back impatiently.

"Doesn't change what happened. Shut up and put your seatbelt on, Sam."

"I think..." Jessica pauses, unsure of if she should interject into the conversation or not before she decides to go for it, mustering the nerve when she's not sure how her soon-to-be brother-in-law will accept the interruption. "I don't want to sound like Susie Sunshine, but I think jobs can come and go. It would suck if Castiel lost his... but he looks at you like you hung the moon, Dean. That's pretty special. Maybe you should look at what the two of you are gaining, not just what he might be losing?"

Dean and Sam both twist to look at Jess incredulously, pessimistic and practical respectively, and she throws her hands up, shaking her head. "Sorry for being the voice of optimism. Geeze, don't drive us into a ditch over it. I'm just saying. . . I'd rather lose a job than lose Sam."

It's a beat before Sam leans forward and presses a kiss to the side of Jess's cheek, wrapping both of his arms around her shoulders in a hug, and its sickeningly couple-y. Dean's overblown groan at the gesture gets him an amused smile from Jess, and a bitchface from Sam.

"Seatbelt!"

xXx

"You do realize why you're here, Doctor Novak." When Castiel first joined Lawrence Memorial Hospital, the attention of Doctor Zachariah Adler seemed a stroke of luck. The older doctor was personable, he made promises of a bright future for the young doctor as a department head in a few short years, and he tucked Castiel under his wing. And in the beginning of Castiel's decline in favor, his criticisms had been couched in a smile, sideways, underhanded, and never direct. 'No one ever made chief of medicine by catering to the patients, Castiel. Stick with me, kid.'

Zachariah played the bureaucratic games of the hospital like it was magic, pressing the flesh, knowing the right people, saying the right thing with an insincere smile. Only months after Castiel arrived, Zachariah had become chief of medicine, as he'd predicted.

Had Castiel 'stuck with him,' he could have likely been a department head, or on the fast track to it. He had the talent. He had the intelligence. But he lacked the 'killer instinct,' as Zachariah put it. He focused in all the wrong place, and lacked the charm Zachariah seemed to ooze. Oily, disingenuous charm.

"I was under the impression that I was here because I assaulted two men in the parking lot, Doctor." Castiel's words fall just short of sarcasm, flat enough that tone one way or another is impossible to determine, and Zachariah's eyes narrow slightly as he attempts to read him and finds bland non-expression as his only answer.

"Yes, but that's just a symptom of the problem, Castiel. I know how it is. I've been watching you at it for over a year, kid." Castiel's eye twitches at being called 'kid,' but he doesn't move otherwise as Zachariah slides out from behind his desk, circling Castiel as he speaks, a tactic to make him uneasy, uncomfortable. "As a doctor we expect you to have empathy, Castiel. We want you to. Make the patients feel safe, make them feel comfortable, but you don't let them walk all over you. You were moved to the long-term ward because why? You were manipulating the system. You were letting every . . . every widowed old lady and dewy eyed kid turn you all around with a sob story."

"I recommended non-surgical options and suggested certain non-invasive remedies that were less financially taxing. . ."

"See, right there!" Castiel's mouth snaps shut again, and silently he fumes at the interruption. This is not the first time this conversation has happened, and every time Zachariah's smug, self-aggrandizing tone makes him seethe. "Castiel, a hospital is not a charity, it is a business. I wish we could just give everyone a pill and send them home . . . really, I do! But in the long-term the surgical option is more effective for the patient and more profitable for the hospital. Everyone wins!"

Castiel isn't certain when this speech stopped having the same effect; when he stopped flinching at Zachariah's disapproval and started gritting his teeth at it instead, but he has stood in this same place so many times, let himself be talked down to so often, that he's not sure why he takes it any more. Dropping his chin, closing his eyes, Castiel remains silent and Zachariah takes it as acquiescence. Encouraged, he rests a hand on Castiel's shoulder, patronizing and irritating.

"But none of that. . . none of that compares to this. You get too involved, Castiel. And now you are jeopardizing your career and the hospital's reputation by getting into some brawl over some pretty piece who batted his eyelashes at you."

"Piece, sir?" How Zachariah misses the dangerous undertone to the quiet request for clarification, Castiel doesn't know. It's not the first time Zachariah's taken him as a naive fool because of his religious background and his faith, felt he had to educate him in the 'ways of the world.'

"That Omega piece of ass, Castiel." Slapping Castiel on the shoulder, clarification given, he continues without registering the reaction, the slow shift in posture. "Now, we still want you here Castiel. Our legal division can help make this all go away for you, and the lawsuit against the hospital is a joke. Obviously there will be repercussions, but the Board of Directors, the administrators . . . we all know how valuable you could be to us if you would just. . ."

Castiel's hospital badge hits the desk between them as Zachariah takes his seat, and he blinks at it before looking up at Castiel before him, as if shocked he had the gall to take action, to interrupt while he was speaking. Holding his gaze for a moment longer, Castiel then turns on his heel, stalking stiffly and silently towards the door.

"Where do you think you're going? We're not done here." Zachariah is all bluster and bruised self-importance, and Castiel pauses with his hand on the open door without turning.

"Yes. We are. Consider this my immediate resignation." It's not enough. He has suffered this man's idiocy for too long, the indignities and petty manipulations since the day he began working for him. Perhaps it's time that Castiel stood up for himself, as Dean has, and damn the consequences. Hands balled into fists at his sides, he turns to look the most powerful politician in the hospital, a man who could smear him and ruin his ability to get any other job in the state, who every potential employer from now on will speak to directly, who can complicate the legal battle and throw him under a bus on behalf of the hospital. . . and then spits then his farewell to that man between clenched teeth, fully aware of the audience of doctors and nurses in the hall behind him. "And Zachariah? Go to hell, you pompous, useless windbag."

xXx

The phone finally rings on the outskirts of Lawrence, as Dean's tossing change into the turnpike and cursing toll roads. He fumbles the cellphone into place as the bar raises, freeing him into traffic again. "Cas? How's it going at the hospital? What's going on?"

"Dean. . ." There's a long silence, and Dean's fairly certain he just heard Castiel sigh. "How quickly can you be here? Hospital security is eyeing me askance, and I would rather be out of here before someone makes a scene."

Well, more of a scene.

Cursing under his breath, Dean merges, cuts around a minivan, and checks the time. "I'm fifteen minutes out. You wanna tell me what's going on, or. . .?"

"When you get here."


	15. Chapter 15

An entire career path, another truncated future, and it packs up into one box of medical journals, a few personal items and a folded white coat, the entire parcel small enough that he can tuck it under one arm. Zachariah has one of the security guards check through it, as if Castiel is trying to smuggle out an entire surgical suite in a shoebox, and the general indignity of being treated like a thief is enough to see him through the entire ordeal straight-backed and smoldering in anger.

It only settles in that Castiel is being treated like a criminal in part because he is a criminal after he's out of the sliding doors and onto the sidewalk. Still, he's glad he managed to cling to his righteous indignation and fury long enough to clear him from watching eyes.

Castiel walks to the bus stop out of habit and out of the desire to be away from the hospital entryway. He watches a bus pull away without moving away from the curb, shaking his head slightly at the driver's questioning stare before the doors slide closed, and with a grating screech of the breaks, his only guaranteed ride for three hours is gone. He stares after it for a long moment, and it slowly settles in that he has no doubts that a man who has disappeared on him at the drop of a hat several times in their very short acquaintance would abandon him here today.

It's a level of trust that his brothers would declare naive. That Zachariah would lament as idiotic. He clutches his box closer to himself, closes his eyes, and waits silently, listening to cars and trucks roll by him on the busy street without slowing, standing uselessly by the side of the road rather than risk retreat to the bench. That would be admitting he expects to wait. Dean said he would be there, and he will be there. Castiel's stiff posture only relaxes once he hears the growl of a muscle car five minutes later. It reminds him of Dean's voice, as if the man has tried to emulate his beloved vehicle every time he gets upset, a basso roar.

He mechanically opens the door once the car slides to a smooth halt beside him on the curb, slipping inside the vehicle, the leather sun-warmed and welcoming like an embrace, and he clutches his box closer and sinks into it.

Dean is staring at him in concern from the driver's seat, keeping the car in park. "Shit. What happened, Cas?"

"Drive, Dean." He wants to put this entire place as far in the rearview as he can, right now. Pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingertips, he coils his other arm tighter around the box and closes his eyes, leaning against the door to rest his temple on the glass of the window.

"Please, just drive."

xXx

It shouldn't surprise him that they end up at the Roadhouse, parked between Jo's car and Ellen's Explorer. Short of Castiel's apartment, it's the only place within Lawrence that they have in common that would be any real draw to Dean. It takes Dean circling the car and taking the box from Castiel's hands for him to notice that he stepped out of the Impala still holding it, and that's more alarming to him than it is to Dean.

Castiel dislikes what it says about his mental state. It may be his career, but that's just a job. It was his choice to leave it. He knows he made the right decision. He thinks he did. He hopes he did. He prays to God he made the right choice, and that he didn't let his pride and his fierce protectiveness of Dean get the best of him. It's all tangled up in his head right now, and all he can think is how many times this makes now that he's turned his back on his professions without a safety net. The apartment means next to nothing to him: it was a place to sleep. The job, though. . .

The job defined him. The job gave him purpose.

Castiel is in love, but even he realizes that his sole purpose in life cannot be Dean Winchester. And he cannot become a burden for Dean to have to carry; Dean carries enough.

"I'm fine, Dean." Castiel assures him, and receives a blatantly skeptical look in return. Castiel has spent so much of the time since they met trying to support Dean, to bolster him, and witnessing him in truly terrible situations: he's not used to that being turned around on him. The fact that Dean is an older brother who essentially became sole caretaker of an infant at four years old shines through now in his bearing, his posture, and the way he hooks an arm around Castiel's shoulders without taking no for an answer, guiding him towards the bar.

"Yeah. Sure you are. You look 'fine,' Cas. C'mon. You haven't eaten, we need to talk, and if we go back to your place we're not going to talk."

"We've talked at home." It's important to him that he clarifies this, corrects him. In part, because he doesn't want Dean thinking of it just as his apartment. And mostly, because he doesn't want Dean to believe that since they've become a sexual relationship, sex is all Castiel is offering. Dean rolls his eyes, opens the doors before them, and propels Castiel inside.

"Not the point. You look like shit, and I'm not waiting for a lunch delivery to get you talking. Just get inside, Cas. You bossed me the second we met, 'shock' and all. . ."

"Shock is a medical term. I'm not in shock." Castiel contradicts, and after a moment he argues more. "And I was not 'bossy,' I merely. . ."

"You 'merely' stole my car keys, drove me to your place, and smothered me in bandages and blankets."

"I'm smothering you. . .?"

A mug hits the counter in front of each of them simultaneously. "Two exits down the highway." Jo beams at the nearly synchronized head-turning looks of confusion leveled on her by both men, and rests her elbows on the counter, chin in her cupped hands. "The hotel. Since I'm about to tell you two to go get a room, instead of bothering me with your foreplay before we're even open yet." Jo catches sight of Castiel, stops, and frowns in concern. "Wow. You look like shit."

Dean flips a hand at her, triumphant. "See? So shut up and talk."

"Those are counter-indicative, and you cannot take every person to interject as proof that you've won. . ."

"Oh dear God, shut up both of you!"

Dean smirks to himself, smug and proud of something, and nods to Jo conspiratorially.

Castiel blinks and stares at Dean a long moment, and realizes it helped. Dean heckled him, verbally prodded him, and now he's out of his stunned state, back in his right mind, and he suddenly understands; Dean does this on purpose. In the police cruiser and now here, he's taken Castiel enough out of the moment that he can get perspective on it. He's certain from watching Dean's interactions with his brother and now with Jo that this isn't the first time he's done this, either.

It's unorthodox, but as tactics go it's brilliant.

"I'm fine now, thank you." Castiel's heartfelt gratitude makes Dean blink: it's probably the first time anyone has ever thanked him for being deliberately irritating.

"Well, good." Resting his hand on Castiel's thigh below the edge of the bar-top, away from Jo's inquisitive stare, he squeezes gently and frowns at Cas, the smart assed exterior stripped away now that it's not needed. "You ready to tell us what the hell's going on, then?"

"Think we'd all like to hear that one." Ellen leans against the doorway to the back of the bar, arms folded. "You here for the usual, Dean?"

"If it's not too much trouble?" Sam may be the king of puppy dog eyes, but Dean's no slouch in that department either. The entire interaction makes little sense to Castiel, but he's busy framing how to explain what happened.

"I went into the disciplinary hearing with the chief of medicine." Ellen and Jo exchange a look, and Ellen props the door open to hear, stepping out of sight, though they can hear her moving in the kitchen beyond. Castiel's attention is caught and kept by Dean, as it always seems to be, and he squeezes Castiel's leg gently beneath his palm, green eyes attentively fixed on his. "I have had difficulties at the hospital already. You noted that I was placed with the comatose patients as a punishment of sorts. Their reasoning was that I could form no attachment with them. Zachariah believed that I let myself get too close to the patients in my charge, and it affected my ability to remain appropriately clinical."

"'Clinical'. . . what, are you supposed to be a friggin' robot?"

Castiel shrugs slightly, drawing his fingers through the condensation on his mug, and he swipes his hand over the shape once he recognizes it as a crude Caduceus. Jo is listening as well, though she's busying herself readying the bar for its open hours. "No. But I am supposed to be more detached. He is not entirely wrong, Dean. I have broken hospital rules, and violated the guidelines of my profession. While I've never outright defrauded them, I've manipulated insurance documents in the past to allow patients who would not be able to afford necessary procedures to obtain them, and pushed others to non-surgical solutions so they would not pay thousands."

"Coulda used that when my Dad got sick. Some way to work the system." Jo offers quietly, and Dean nods; Bill Harvelle's body gave out long before the man himself would have, and the Harvelle family finances have never recovered entirely. Illness had turned the ash within the Harvelle patriarch's lungs nearly into concrete. Rules were made to be bent, as far as Dean Winchester was concerned. Particularly if a stupid rule cost good people their lives, or bankrupted them.

Cas's words tumble out, now, disjointed from the rest of the story. "I quit, Dean. He offered to let me come back, offered to have the hospital legal team make the lawsuit disappear if I was obedient. But I quit."

"So you wanna go back a step, son?" A plate slides into place between Dean and Castiel on the bar top, burgers wrapped in paper towels, pickle spears beside them and chips dumped between them, and Ellen snags one of the pickles and points at him with it. "How'd we get from 'all sins forgiven' to you giving the asshole boss the finger?"

Castiel rubs the back of his neck, then reaches for a chip, eyes averted, and Dean and both Harvelle women hone in on the motion, eyes narrowing. Dean voices what they're all wondering, his words thick with repressed laughter at the sheepish expression on Castiel's face. "Cas, did you actually give him the finger or something?"

"Not. . . exactly." He has danced around the topic: even in their short acquaintance, Castiel has come to realize how very little Dean would appreciate knowing that Castiel turned his back on a lucrative career in large part because Zachariah insulted him. How he would never have done it on his own behalf. "He was infuriating, and then insulting. And he then attempted to tell me that coming to Dean's aide was. . . misguided. He said something particularly insulting and I threw my hospital credentials at him and then insulted him in front of a large portion of the staff."

Dean is staring at him, and he can feel that regard like a weight against his skin. It's Ellen who breaks that, pushing the plate closer to them both.

"Well good for you, then. Eat your burger, Castiel. Been making those for Dean when his day sucked, for a long damn time: taught Dean his way around that kitchen back there until he became a better cook than me. You oughta convince the boy to cook for you sometime." Ellen Harvelle can read between the lines, and has decided that Castiel is part of the family.

And she'll cuff Dean upside the head if he lets this guy go without a damned good reason. The look she shoots Dean shuts his jaw with a snap, but he's pensive for the rest of their meal.

xXx

"Alright. Ellen's got a point. We're going shopping tomorrow." Dean declares, tugging Castiel out of the passenger seat of his car in the parking lot of the apartment, wrapping an arm around his waist as the doctor tucks his box beneath his arm on the other side. "Take-out food is crap and costs more, and. . ."

Well, and they've got a damn short amount of time left until they're not going to want anyone knocking on the door while they're otherwise occupied with Dean's Heat. It's looming over them, making Dean antsy, and he swears he can feel it creeping under his skin already, the threat against his control and the cold sweat of knowing that he's willingly putting himself in the hands of an Alpha when he won't have an iron grip on himself. Hell, that it's so assumed by both of them that he'll be in Castiel's bed that neither of them has even broached the topic.

It'd be easier if he had actual scars to show for his time in Alastair's 'employ.' The mental scars, the mistrust and the fear, they itch in a different way. Castiel leans into his side for a moment, a steadying weight against him, as if he can read Dean's hesitation, fill in the trailed off words for himself. Maybe he can.

Castiel doesn't notice the rental car in the lot; the sleek lines and crimson sides of the Aston Martin catch Dean's practiced eye, but he's never had any indication that Cas is a car guy. Grown man takes the friggin' bus, relies on public transportation and walking to get him anywhere. Still, it's a sweet ride, even renting it from the KC airport would cost an arm and a leg.

It's not until they're halfway up the steps and Dean stiffens, straightening and drawing away from Castiel, that Cas realizes something is wrong.

"Cas, you lock the apartment before we left?"

"Yes? Just before I gave you the key." He can see it too, now, though. The apartment door is open, just a hair: someone's inside. Dean doesn't wait for him. It's a little disturbing to see Dean shift modes, the way he twitches for a gun that isn't there and settles instead for a slow prowl, coming toward the door from the windowless side. Dean doesn't trust the police in this town . . . he doesn't trust the police in most towns, so he's not calling the cops for an open door. Especially not when he's out on bail himself. The knife on him is just barely legal, and Dean's a firm believer in pushing the letter of the law.

If those assholes hadn't caught him on a bad day in the parking lot, his hands full and his mind wandering, they wouldn't have had the chance to pen him in.

Castiel, conversely, strides past him box in hand and head high, like he's fucking bullet proof, straight-arming the door open. Dean would be tempted to think he was a dumb cocky sunuvabitch, if he hadn't seen Castiel fight before. Clearly, though, his is a very different style: Dean's never got enough of an upper hand that he can be so brash about it, and for some reason Castiel is pretty damn sure he can wade into a fight and walk out the winner.

He falls in behind Castiel just in time for the doctor to come to a complete halt, stiffening in the living room, staring at the intruder's back. A white suit jacket sits across broad shoulders, sandy blonde hair is cropped short and spiked, and the man stands with the framed silver photograph in hand.

Castiel isn't in a fighting stance, but he's damned sure displeased. Dean doesn't know what to make of this situation.

"Get the hell out of my house."

"Very funny." The stranger tetches, finally turning to meet Castiel's furious gaze head-on. "Barely in the door and the 'hell' jokes begin. Isn't that more Gabriel's routine than yours, Castiel?"

Oh.

"Hello, brother." Lucifer smiles.


	16. Chapter 16

Dean's been in the middle of some pretty tough 'family reunions' before, but even Bobby staring his father down with a shotgun in his hands was warmer than what he's witnessing here. This is downright frigid, as if Castiel believes a cold stare and frozen posture can drive the man before him out of the little apartment without him needing to acknowledge his brother's presence further.

"You're not even going to ask me to sit down, Castiel? That hurts." Lucifer doesn't seem the least bit hurt by it, though he puts on a good face and holds his hand over his chest; the hand holding the silver-framed picture of the triplets. Dean's been in a room with this guy in his white suit and polished shoes for less than a minute, and he already hates him.

Could do with the fact that Lucifer hasn't acknowledged his existence.

"Pretty sure Cas told you to leave, jackass."

Again, Lucifer ignores Dean and he moves to step away from the bookshelf when Castiel's voice rasps out again, his already usually gravelly voice harsh and commanding. "Put it down."

The photograph. Lucifer raises it, looking at the image of the three identical men captured laughing and happy, and he looks sad. Pained. If Dean's bullshit detector wasn't so damned sensitive, he might even be taken in by it. "It's a good picture. Just before you deployed, wasn't it? You did Emmanuel and Daphne's wedding that week. I wasn't there, but. . ."

"You weren't invited." Castiel strides across the room, finally, and plucks the photograph out of Lucifer's hands, setting it back on the shelf and placing his box of possessions from the hospital on the next one, to be sorted. "And you're not welcome here, either. I have already selected an attorney, and I have no interest in your 'services,' Lucifer."

"Sam Winchester." Hearing his brother's name on this asshole's lips sets off every warning bell Dean has, and he leans against the wall by the door, arms folding, and glowers. "Yes, I know all about your little show of independence, Castiel. He's not a bad choice: I've tried to hire him into the firm myself, though I find him a little blindly idealistic, I'm certain with a bit of seasoning he could. . ."

"Become an asshole like you? Keep dreaming." Dean's low growl finally catches Lucifer's fleeting attention.

"I didn't invite you to speak, Dean." Lucifer has blue eyes like Castiel's, but there is nothing to Castiel's wonder in them as he looks Dean over, stripping him down. Dean is just a dog that has been caught chewing on the master's favorite shoes, and there's too much familiarity in how easily he uses Dean's name. "I know you've been trained better than that."

It's a loaded word, rolled off of Lucifer's tongue with meaning that drenches Dean in a cold sweat, leaves him furious and shaken and triggered. Lucifer knows. Somehow, he knows. He doesn't wait to see the effect of his words, merely looks back to Castiel, dismissing Dean once again. Cas is busy attempting to look busy and misses the weight of the interaction as he places medical texts on the bookshelf, carefully lifts another silver frame from the box and places it on the shelf as well, and in all other ways fails to conceal how deeply unsettled he is having Lucifer in his home.

"We all understand that you needed space, Castiel. We've been half afraid you'd gone off to become one of those isolationists in the central states. It took an arrest for us to find you again." Lucifer rests a hand on Castiel's shoulder, and Dean is suddenly resisting the urge to snarl at him, pushing off of the wall immediately and pacing closer to the two brothers. "I want to help you, make this all go away, and bring you home. It's in the best interest of the family. . ."

Castiel twists in place, shrugging Lucifer's hand off of him, blue eyes blazing in anger even as every word falls from his lips clipped and precise, his hands bunched into fists at his sides. "The best interest of the family, Lucifer? That is exactly what you said when we last spoke, when I made it abundantly clear that I want nothing to do with you, or your interpretation of what is best for the family. You sued them when he became ill, as if he was faulty equipment instead of a human being, because that wasn't what Father paid for. Because he was 'flawed.' I lost my brother, I sat at his bedside and took his confessions and administered his last rites as he died, and you only cared about the wasted investment . . ."

The picture of the triplets laughing. The reverential way Castiel handled the image. The sadness in his eyes. The way he shied away from discussion of his family. How broken he seemed for that split second that Dean looked at him in the hospital as watched John's last rites. The quietly envious way Castiel watched every interaction Dean had with Sam.

Dean had succumb to tears at John's bedside at the mere idea of losing Sam the same way. How much more difficult must it be if it was your twin? If you couldn't even look in the mirror without seeing the face of the brother you lost? If you couldn't ever escape it, and if everyone who had ever known you both was haunted the same way by looking at you? If the remaining two of the original threesome couldn't be in the same room without remembering their loss? How else could the son of a wealthy family end up living a lonely, penniless, bus-riding, apartment-dwelling existence in the middle of nowhere Kansas, far away from everything and everyone he knew?

Castiel has been living with the ghost of his brother for years.

"I knew our Father. I loved him, and I knew what he intended was never this. I knew he never would have wanted to watch one of his sons suffer." Lucifer's voice is low, silky, manipulative, but it slides off of Castiel without influence on his furious glare. "He was my brother, too, Castiel. Did you ever stop to think that I was concerned their mistake could affect you two as well? You're hurting, I understand, but this isn't healthy. You're wearing his coat even though it's the middle of summer. Making a shrine to him. . ." Lucifer nods his head now to both silver picture frames, now side by side. "And you're throwing your life away one reckless decision at a time, first in the military with the mess you made of things, and now here in Kansas of all places, looking for pet causes to get you by . . ."

There's no mistaking Lucifer's meaning, and the way he flicks a hand at Dean as if he's the example of ridiculous pet causes makes Castiel scowl, drawing himself up further but still falling short of his elder brother's height.

"You have no idea what you're talking about. And your opinions on my relationship and on my decisions are irrelevant, as is your offer of legal assistance. I want nothing to do with you."

"Sounds to me what the man is saying is 'get thee behind me, Satan.' Door's right there, asshole." Dean doesn't flinch as Lucifer turns to include him in the conversation now, and it's clear in a glance that he realizes he's lost with Castiel. He's not attempting to tempt Castiel back, now; he's eyeing Dean in a predatory manner, and he raises a hand to touch the bruise on Dean's jaw, fingers dragging uncomfortably along the day-old stubble covering it.

"You really should be more careful with your toys, Castiel. You're letting him out like this?" Lucifer steps closer, and Castiel tenses impossibly, eyes flicking to Dean's, and Dean can tell he's ready to fight again. This is a test of some sort, this asshole's way of proving that Castiel's being reckless, and Dean shakes his head slightly, hoping Cas takes it as an order to stand-down, but not sure his restraint will last. Lucifer's nostrils flare, and his blue eyes are dark and hypnotic, dangerous. "Unclaimed, reeking of sex . . . and almost ripe too. All it would really take is the right push and he'd be in full heat, just _begging for it._" There's that dangerous loaded edge to his words, again, and this time Castiel doesn't miss it. The potential for violence spikes, aggression thick in the room, and Dean knows damned well that nothing makes you crazy quite like family. They're going to end up killing each other at this rate, and he reaches out to press a hand to Castiel's chest, keeping the Alpha at arm's length and anchoring himself against the pounding rhythm of Cas's heart. This display isn't just for Cas. It's to make Dean break, to try and unmake him in Cas's eyes too. "And it's all too ironic, really, when you think about it, little brother."

"Dean is not a 'toy.' Step away from him, now, and leave here." There's a warning growl to Castiel's voice, the deep rumble of potential violence, and his hand knots into the white suit sleeve, but Lucifer keeps his eyes on Dean as he continues.

"Our little Castiel found his faith in a whorehouse, after all. Thirteen years old, just popped a knot for the first time, and I bought him a little present, a few hours of playtime. You've never seen someone so curious and naïve, asking innocent questions and expecting his big brothers to have all the answers . . . but he walked into that room and froze. Couldn't even remember his own name when the attendant asked. Decided he was going to be celibate for life, and bolted. I should have guessed I'd just bought him the wrong whor . . ."

"Finish that word and I'll knock your fucking teeth in." Dean smiles, his own teeth bared, letting himself be drawn into the ratcheting tension finally, and any moment this could spill into something other than ugly words. "Breaking and entering. . . that's a crime, isn't it? I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure mine could get it excused if I had to kick your ass on the way out the door."

"The door of your house, Dean? You have insinuated yourself into my brother's life fairly quickly, haven't you? How soon after you met did he risk imprisonment and bankruptcy for you? Did he lose his career for you? Break lifelong vows for you? Invite you to share his home?" Lucifer's posture has never shifted into threatening, but he hasn't allowed himself to be cowed by Castiel or Dean either, and his words are eerily calm given the violent regard of the two men before him. "I look out for the good of our family, and my father's legacy. I expect you would do no less for your brother and father if they needed you."

The words are barbed, and Lucifer extracts himself from Castiel's grip easily, brushing out the wrinkles in his suit, and the look he gives his brother is full of pity and sympathy. "I'll be in touch if you decide to stop your self-imposed exile and accept who you are. I'll give our family your regards, but Castiel. . . Jimmy is gone. It's time you move on."

The name seems to twist something painful in Castiel's expression, but does nothing to damage his resolve. Dean stays next to Cas, the unnecessary restraining hand on Castiel's chest as Lucifer sees himself out without closing the door, as if inviting his brother to see reason and come with him. Moments later Dean hears the distinctive roar of the Aston Martin in the lot below, and only then does he turn back to Cas.

He has a damned lot of questions right now for Castiel, about Lucifer, about what he said and about how well he seemed to know the most painful part of Dean's own history. He's feeling every one of those accusations acutely, too, twisting him up and screwing with him, undermining the relationship they're only now building. But Castiel's eyes have slid to the picture frames, and Dean finally lets himself follow Castiel's gaze to the second picture.

The man in it isn't Castiel, but could have been: same messy hair, same stubbled jaw, same vibrant blue eyes that Dean's starting to realize must have come from their father. Off-centered and clearly a candid shot, Jimmy Novak flashes the brilliant, jubilant, tired smile of a new father as he lays with a baby nuzzling into his chest, tiny fist clutching the fabric of his t-shirt and refusing to let go.

This is the image he took to work with him to remind him of why he labored under Zachariah, why he tried to heal people.

It must have been taken just a short while before the first picture, then, where the blonde woman holds the baby girl in her arms beside Jimmy; the most animated of the triplets in the image, full of life and joy and joking with his siblings as a party goes on in the brownstone behind them, Emmanuel with his new wife and Jimmy with his new baby, and Castiel tucked between them sheepish but happy.

This is the image he put in his apartment, his best representation of home.

Lucifer struck enough blows today. Dean has to step away, turning to clear the room, and he feels Castiel's regard on him, waiting to see if he'll run again, if he'll walk right out in Lucifer's wake and leave him alone with his grief and his clearly fucked up past. Cas has had a shitty day, and Dean's not going to make it worse. Not right now. Everything else can wait. He closes the apartment door, walks back to Cas, takes him by the hand, and draws him down onto the couch, folded against Dean's side. It would be more comfortable for both of them without the trenchcoat, but for now Dean doesn't try to pull it off of him.

Dean wore his mother's ring and a dime-store pendant his brother gave him when they were kids until both were taken from him, and he drives his father's car. He has no right to question the sentimental value of simple things.

"He was the best of us." It's the first thing Castiel's said since Lucifer walked out of the room, since he had nothing left to rail against, and it sounds hollow and quiet. "I listened to all of his sins and offered him Heaven's forgiveness, but there was nothing that compared to what I had just done, and I was the supposed saintly one . . . he was good. If it had to be one of us. . . it shouldn't have been him."

Now isn't the time for Dean's questions.

Wrapping his arms around Castiel, he presses his lips to Cas's forehead and rather than offer useless comfort to a man who knew all the tricks of it, he lets Castiel talk about the brother he lost. His best friend, the glue that held the threesome together through six years of faux-childhood in the crèche that Dean can't even begin to imagine, and on through adulthood together. The brother who died of a simple twist of their tampered-with genetics, refusing damaging treatments so that he could donate everything to ensure his own daughter would survive if it passed on to affect her.

He can see, now, how it could be hard for Cas to stay a priest, to believe in a just God after coming back from a war and senseless torture against his captured flock, just to watch his brother waste away.

Castiel's words are quiet, slow, and trail off into soon after: a thumbnail portrait of a life, but he gets the feeling it's the most Cas has spoken about it to anyone.

Dean does the only thing he can, for now.

He stays.

xXx

The morning dawns on them tangled together on the couch, and Dean has a crick in his neck and the sun in his eyes and the folds of Castiel's coat seem to have embedded themselves into his cheek. It's too hot, and he's full of restless energy and anxiety, and he knows it's just the precursors of what's to come, what tomorrow will bring.

Cas is finally sleeping in, and Dean doesn't want to disturb him, but they need food for the next few days and he already knows Castiel's fridge and pantry are pitiful. Getting off the couch without waking Cas is a study in the art of stealthy falling-on-his-ass, but before he prises away he gets the jabbing awareness that this close to his Heat, even in his sleep, Cas is definitely. . . responding to him, and miserable overall or not there are parts of the guy that seem pretty damned happy to have been uncomfortably crammed together on a couch with him.

Dean's a walking, talking chemical factory and he's drugging the poor bastard. And that shouldn't make him want to unwrap Castiel like a Christmas present and fuck him in his sleep. Dean's self-disgust leaves him cold, chases away the lingering warmth, and he puts himself as far away from Castiel as he can.

He closes the bedroom door after him, and then the bathroom door as well to insulate Cas from the noise of his shower, and slathers himself in the pungent soap and shampoo he managed to leave in the bathroom from his duffle bag, brushes his teeth from the toothbrush he left at the sink, and every little token of how much he's managed to move himself in is a stabbing reminder of Lucifer's words. He pops another birth control pill from Jo's pack, and tries not to let himself think what it's for, or what it means that he's taking them.

He shaves and throws on aftershave for good measure, drowning out scent triggers, and slips naked into the empty bedroom to grab his clothes. The dryer sheet he tucks between them is doing its job too, but he's getting down to the bottom of his bag; he never expected to stay this long, didn't pack for it. Somehow all of his dirty clothes are mixed in with Castiel's in the hamper in the corner of the bathroom, and it's just another little stab of his invasion into this man's world. Standing in a t-shirt and boxers now, scrubbing a hand over his wet hair, he frowns at the bag before padding to Castiel's closet. It wouldn't hurt to layer the sensory lie a little deeper, throw some Alpha in there: he's been getting too many comments and leering and creeps like that Officer and those prisoners recently for him to be comfortable in his own skin right now, let alone everything. . . else.

Yes, he's borrowing his boyfriend's clothes and living the cliché. Cas wore his, turnabout is fair play. Plus Cas has been riling him up or knotting him sore and full, so he's not going to wear second-day jeans today because walking around smelling just-fucked and ready-to-fuck defeats the purpose. It's not invasive or presumptuous, and is probably a lot more likely to look ridiculous, if all Cas has is frikkin' pleated suit pants a size too small for him.

The camouflage BDU pants folded in the top corner of the closet shelf catch his eye, and fucking score. Yeah, it might be a bit pretentious and douchey if you weren't military yourself at some point, but as much as his Marine father threw plenty of military crap at them, Dean never would have been allowed to enlist because of the Omega laws. At least he won't be uncomfortable, and it's one frikkin' day.

He wouldn't mind seeing Cas in his Army uniform sometime, though. And now Mister Problems-with-Authority is finding himself on the receiving end of a new kink with that visual image, and he needs to keep his head firmly out of the gutter this close to his Heat, and he definitely needs to keep that image from morphing into Castiel on his knees in his trim black priest suit and clerical collar, or all Doctor Sexy'd out and dragging him into janitor closets. This shouldn't be affecting him this much, his heat has never started hitting him with symptoms off schedule except for when it was the drugs slipped into his drink at the bar and Alastair's smirking face . . . fear and anxiety twist his guts into knots again, leave him leaning against the closet doorframe panting and staring up at the clothes until the terror fades, the arousal thoroughly chased away.

After a long moment finding his own equilibrium again, he hooks the pants down from the shelf and then ducks the sudden avalanche of photographs and papers that patter down with them, drifting to the closet floor. He stares at them for a long moment, torn: he shouldn't pry, but he needs to pick them up anyway, and he desperately needs a distraction, something to take himself out of his own head. The photographs are easiest, from there. A blonde girl with bright blue eyes and straight, honey-blonde hair smiles out of school portraits, scattered as they are she seems to age and regress and age again, a woman's neat handwriting on the back naming her Claire and listing her age each time, and each portrait is clear proof that regardless of Lucifer's accusations Castiel was never as out of touch with his family as he let his older brother believe. There are a few crayon drawings and then penciled letters addressed to Uncle Castiel, too, creased and folded from being tucked into envelopes, and damned if that doesn't break Dean's heart. He's pretty sure he's staring at evidence of where Castiel's substantial paychecks end up, because this little apartment and take-out food don't explain it. There are other letters as well—addressed to "Cassie" and "Hey, bro" and Dean doesn't read them, just stacks them neatly back on the pile. He'd like to think its proof that at least Castiel has some siblings who aren't complete douchebags.

One photograph gives him pause, though—it's not a portrait like the rest, and that catches his eye. Sepia filtered desert sunlight hits the sand that forms the entire backdrop, leaving the figures in it nearly silhouettes. Castiel is on one knee beside a stretcher, head bowed in prayer over a hand clasped in both of his, a battered leather Bible resting on the prone man's chest and a silver cross catching the sunlight against Cas's flak jacket, hanging just lower than his dog tags. Somehow the picture manages to be hopeful and heartbreaking at the same time. The man on the stretcher is reaching the other hand to him, but there's pain in the barely visible lines of Castiel's face. His hair is matted to his head with sweat and sand, and he has a thin beard from neglect painting his cheeks.

Dean flips the photo, and careful cursive writing slants across the back of the image.

_Father—_

_Have faith. Remember that you did the right thing in terrible circumstances. Alfie wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you. None of them would. Trust in God, Castiel, as you asked us to. He knows that you did what was righteous and just._

_- Anna_

Frowning, Dean carefully sets the picture aside and looks through the rest of the mess on the floor until he finds a typed and printed packet of papers, folded in half, "After Action Report" in capital letters across the top of the page, beneath the US Army insignias. He doesn't read it, not fully, but phrases jump out at him from Cpt. Anna Milton's account of events.

"Five soldiers and unit chaplain captured by enemy combatants."

"Injurious violation of the Geneva Convention including torture of Prisoners Of War in interrogation."

"Witnessed by unit chaplain Lt. Novak." The phrase appears again and again, nearly six weeks of slowly increasing mistreatment of the five POWs while their chaplain by law had his hands tied. Unarmed, required to remain a noncombatant, free to go: and Castiel had stayed. By the accounts, he snuck them the food and water that he was given, treated their injuries and ministered to them, and kept them alive as best he could while the enemy took pleasure in knowing that the Catholic priest couldn't act against them. Until they crossed a line and killed one of his men. Until Castiel snapped.

Dean knows before he flips to the final pages what he's going to find. Castiel has never tried to hide this from him, though he clearly can't talk about it easily. He mentioned it that first morning, looking at the photograph on his shelf. Crisis of faith in God and in country. . . acted outside of accordance with those conventions. Castiel saved his soldiers at the expense of breaking every rule of his profession, and to do it he had attacked their guards unarmed and unassisted, and then led the soldiers home. He carried a First Sergeant on his shoulder until Milton's patrols found them and took them back in, and if he had to guess 1SG Samandriel is the "Alfie" that Anna mentioned—a last name like that, Dean would bet some smart-assed drill sergeant in training had nicknamed him "Alphabet" and it stuck.

This is the report Cas told Sam to look up, to prepare to defend. Because the prosecution is going to label Dean a whore, and they're going to call Castiel a vigilante and a killer. From everything Dean can tell, Castiel believes it of himself. Thou Shalt Not Kill, and he'd gone against that commandment and taken justice into his own hands; Dean's sure this is what he was thinking of, when he compared his life to Jimmy's.

They make a pretty fucked up pair, Dean and Cas. He's hoping their individual screwed up pasts don't combine to send them both to jail.

Dragging a hand down his face, Dean carefully gathers up all of the rest of the papers without looking at them, lays them on the shelf, and gets dressed to go shopping. He leaves a scribbled note on the coffee table in front of Cas, palms his keys, and slips out before the doctor wakes. For now, that last piece of the puzzle that is Castiel is enough to leave him thoughtful, and gives him something to mull over other than the fear of his impending heat.

xXx

A distant buzzing, repetitive and annoying, sends Castiel burrowing his face deeper into the couch cushions. When it ceases, he's nearly back to sleep when the phone in his pocket begins ringing insistently, and he struggles with his trench coat and in-the-way wallet to free it, smashing it to his ear and grunting in greeting. He's exhausted, hungry from skipping dinner last night, inexplicably aroused, pleasantly cocooned in Dean's scent if not his warmth, and would rather be sleeping than confronting another bad day or acknowledging everything that yesterday dragged to light.

"Well good morning to you, too." Sam Winchester's amused voice rings out, and Cas makes a face, disgusted that with a two hour time difference Sam can sound alert, awake, and loud. "At least you answer your phone, which is more than I can say for my pain in the ass brother. I wanted to give you two a few heads up, now that I'm back at the office. We filed the countersuit today, and I went ahead and pressed charges on Dean's behalf against them for assault. . ."

Castiel yawns, rolling onto his back and disappointed to find himself alone in the room, though the white paper on the table assures him it's a temporary situation. Sam seems to be waiting for some sort of response, so Castiel rumbles his understanding wordlessly, and from over 1,500 miles away Sam snorts in amusement at his nonverbal responses. "Fine. I'll let you get back to sleep. Just make sure you and Dean lay low. He'll hate it, and I'm probably just being stupid, but keep him in sight for me today?"

Castiel frowns, squinting at the paper, and manages his first complete thought. "He's out shopping."

Sam's silence is foreboding, and Castiel leverages himself upright on the couch, shifting the phone to his other ear. "Sam?"

"It's probably paranoid, but. . . Cas, anyone can pull arrest records. Anyone. They've got him down as going into Heat any time now, and there's five guys who aren't under arrest yet who'd love to get their hands on him, especially now that we've filed against them. That's not even counting anyone else who might have gotten it. I mean, Alastair knew Dad's address to send the check, and. . ."

Castiel's on his feet already and he doesn't know when he stood, only that he's suddenly wide awake and half way to the front door of his apartment. He knows the nearest grocery store, he walks there all the time rather than wait for the bus. He can make it in fifteen minutes. Less if he runs. "He left his phone here. I'm going to find him."

"Thank you." There's naked relief in Sam's voice. "Call me. I'm sure everything's fine, but call me."

Every unknown car in the parking lot is suspect. Every van along the way feels like it's watching him. Castiel has been a jogger for years, and a pedestrian for longer, and he makes damned good time when he wants to. It's paranoid. It would piss Dean off, to know they were conspiring to babysit him, but Castiel won't feel better until he knows his mate is safe, and all he can imagine is coming across something worse than the parking lot. Every leering idiot they've encountered since they met, every perverted word lobbed at him, every horrible image his mind has concocted to fill in the gaps of Dean's accounts of the assault and of Alistair have consumed his thoughts, filled him with waking nightmares of losing Dean now that he's found him.

He's out of breath by the time he makes it to the grocery store, past the Impala in the nearly empty lot, and then Dean is blinking at him in confusion in the frozen foods aisle, both eyebrows raising sharply. ". . . Cas?"

His shoulders hit the cold-fogged glass hard, Castiel pinning him to the freezer behind him and kissing him in relief at finding him safe, at knowing he's okay, reclaiming him from the phantom assailants in his own mind, and it takes seconds at most before Dean's confusion gives way to something else, fingers releasing the frozen bag of French fries so they fall to the tile, and then he's molded to Castiel, hands knotted in his shirt, a moan swallowed up between them.

The attraction that always seems to simmer in place between them flash-boils as Castiel licks into Dean's mouth, and Dean's fever-hot hands find their way to Cas's back beneath the layers of clothing, rucking up the dress shirt and suit jacket beneath his trench coat and then sliding down the back of his slacks to take his ass in two firm handfuls, wrenching Castiel up against him, their erections hard against each other.

Castiel has just enough presence of mind to pull away at the first wolf-whistle, and finds his mate staring at him with slack lips and wide eyes, flush-cheeked and wanton.

Dean is in Heat.


	17. Chapter 17

Dean's fastidious need to hide what he is actually is the thing that saves them in the end. Castiel can feel it, the heat rolling off of Dean that seems to want to melt away the thin haze of ice on the door behind him and brand into Castiel's skin even through their clothes. He can taste it in Dean's kiss like fine liquor driving away his common sense. And by God can he tell in how Dean's reacting to him, how he's responding to Dean, but all he can smell is Irish Springs and Old Spice and Spearmint toothpaste and his own clothes, with the barest hint of the man he loves underneath all of that.

He glowers at the stock-boy and wolf-whistling cashier watching them intently from one end of the aisle until they move, before taking Dean with him, leaving his cart behind. The two college kids from Kansas University who have the gall to be between him and the door have the self-preservation to get the hell out of his way when he scowls at them for being anywhere near his mate, barely stopping himself from snarling at them. It's early morning on a Wednesday and later, when he can think clearly, he'll thank God that if this was going to happen in public it at least didn't happen at a busier time, or closer to the college or the bars. As it stands, thinking is hard enough with Dean desperately trying to hold on to his own vaunted self-control while tucked beneath the edge of Castiel's ill-fitting trenchcoat and pressed intimately against him. Castiel can feel the slow, unconscious motions that have Dean rubbing his erection against Castiel's hip. It's driving them both a little crazy, making it hard to walk.

"Car." Dean mutters into the bend of Castiel's neck, and he's adeptly managed to tug the tie free and undo the collar to get himself skin, mouthing over the bruises he's left before, scraping his teeth there warningly when Cas shakes his head. If he gets into the car with Dean like he's asking, they're not moving anywhere for hours and he doesn't plan to put on a show or be arrested for a public display. The apartment, John's home, the Roadhouse. . . none of these places feel _safe_ now, if anyone can get their address and know Dean's going into Heat, and more than anything he wants Dean _safe_. That's warring heavily, however, with just _wanting Dean_, and the longer he waits the more base instinct is going to take over. Dean was right: Castiel has never been around an Omega in heat, and Dean alone was heady enough an experience for him without factoring in that.

Dean protests when Castiel dumps him into the back seat of the Impala, looks hopeful when the next thing he does is climb over him and shove his hand into Dean's pocket, and scowls at Cas when he immediately retreats to the front seat with the keys and the speed and surprising agility of a scalded cat. Dean's voice from the back seat is so raw that it's hard to imagine he can form words. "Called it. Knew you were a tease."

"Dean, I need five minutes. What would you be doing to abate the effects if I wasn't here?"

Dean chuckles humorlessly, low and rough, and the sound of it is enough that Castiel's swallowing heavily, trying to ignore the fact that it immediately goes to his dick. "You want me to dirty talk you? What do you_ think_ I do for three days alone in my apartment with a box full of toys?" Dean's shifting in the back seat, antsy, fabric against leather, and the audible rasp of a zipper has Castiel jerking the car back into his lane. "_I want you_, Cas."

There's something desperate to that statement, and more than a little broken. Dean wants Castiel, and he shouldn't want him. He should be far away from him, somewhere safe, locked away in his apartment in Sioux Falls fucking himself on a silicone knot trying to imagine the faceless bodies of porn stars. He would be waking curled into himself protectively and sweating and terrified and dump himself into a cold bath just for the shock to his system to drag himself out of his waking nightmares. Desperately trying to remember if he locked every lock in the moments he's himself, and trying not to hear Alastair's voice in his head, trying to ignore the feeling that he's being watched when he knows intellectually it's not possible. It's miserable. It's fucking _awful_. It's something he survives every month, nothing he's ever looked forward to.

Castiel is getting to him, though, _changing_ him, and it's terrifying and he wants to get the hell away from that, and he wants Cas to bend him over and fuck him on the back seat right goddamn now, and he wants _Cas _and his stupid wide-eyed wonder at all things to do with sex that Dean has never had, and the fact that he looks at _Dean_ that way even after knowing all of his personal bullshit. It's a confusing mess in his head and it already was _before_ the ache hit him, left him desperate and horny as hell and empty, and reminded him that he's just a bitch after all. Only good for the one thing. And now Cas is going to realize it too.

The Impala grinds to a halt; any other day Dean would be telling Castiel off for mistreating his baby, but today he's getting a tan trench coat tossed over him like a blanket in the back seat, trying to give him a modicum of decency. "Stay there. I'm locking the doors. I will be less than three minutes."

Castiel terrifies the hell out of the desk clerk, a college-aged young man who is immediately alarmed when a credit card and ID hit the desk in front of him only seconds before Cas is leaning over it and fixing him with a stare that would convince the armies of hell to turn back rather than face him. "I need a room. King bed. Three nights. If I am not checked out in time, charge another night to the card. Do not disturb, have room service deliver every meal with one knock and no waiting. If you cannot accomplish this within the next two minutes I am dragging my mate into your lobby bathroom and it will either be very uncomfortable for all your incoming guests, or require police intervention once we are no longer tied."

xXx

Exactly two minutes later, his card and ID still in the clerk's possession, they are checked into the Oread Hotel and Castiel has Dean plastered to him again in the hall. Now he is the one half folded into the trenchcoat around his mate, hiding Dean's hand as it plunges down the front of his slacks and boxers, fingers wrapping around his cock and hot breath in his ear. He fumbles the simple card lock of the door twice before the light turns green and they spill inside, literally falling into the dark room, and he has Dean trapped beneath him on the carpet and the outspread trenchcoat that falls open around him, unzipped camo pants riding low enough on Dean's hips that he can see the wet of precum on his boxers beneath, and that's good enough for now.

He needs to _taste_ Dean, show Dean how much it means that he's sharing this with Cas, kissing him deeply, hands sliding against his overheated skin and pushing his shirt up, and Dean's twisting on the floor beneath him, trying to get his pants off. Dean breaks the kiss to peel his own shirt off impatiently rather than wait on Cas, and Castiel steals his lips again before he can talk, smoothing his hands over Dean's body, leaning into him like he can absorb the heat in through his skin. Dean whimpers beneath him, a sound he will deny making to the grave, and Castiel breaks away just enough to let him speak. It's only then that he feels the fine tremors running through Dean's limbs, sees the wet glint of his eyes in the dim room.

"Don't make me beg, Cas. . . please don't make me beg."

He's doing this all _wrong_. Everything to this point has been about Castiel fighting his instincts for Dean's sake, taking things slowly, worshipping Dean and making him feel comfortable. He's been trying to do the same now, take advantage of the scent-blinding to make sure he can give that to Dean again before his control snaps. It's not what Dean needs right now, and that one quiet terrified plea breaks Castiel's heart. Because Dean's not with _him_, not entirely.

Castiel hauls Dean to his feet as he rises, hands clamped on Dean's hips once they're face to face. "Bed. Now." It's a command, an answer for Dean, a promise that he won't make him do that. More than that, he's not going to fuck Dean into the carpet when there is a bed not six feet away that won't leave his back raw and rug-burned, and he couples it with a light push in the right direction to get Dean moving. Castiel flicks the light on as he follows, and Dean's glad of it: there are too many people in this room, too many shadows and memories, and he wants _Cas_. The deadbolt locks as he's moving to follow his Alpha's orders, and he can hear the rattle of the chain lock as well, but he's tossing the ridiculous number of throw pillows off of the bed. Too hot, electric current under his skin, feels like drugs, feels like loss of control, and he needs . . .

_Needy little slut. This is what you are. This is what you're good for. And even when they're using you, you're __**my**__ bitch. Always will be. I'm inside that noggin of yours, Dean._

Castiel is already pantless and yanking his half-unbuttoned dress shirt over his head when he hears the quiet sob, muffled against blankets and carefully trapped behind closed lips. What he sees when he's free of the fabric stops him in his tracks, freezes his blood and leaves him momentarily speechless.

"Oh, Dean. . ."

Dean is face down on the mattress, naked now, knees braced apart and ass up at the edge of the bed, his upper body flattened downwards and arms folded behind him, grasping his wrists against his back, the perfect submissive presentation. Castiel can only imagine what had to be done to him to put him in this position in the first place, ties and cuffs and punishments, the drugs to break him and words to hurt him, '_train'_ him. Dean is shaking, eyes squeezed shut but lashes wet with unshed tears, lips pressed together hard enough that it whites out the color of them, tightens them into a hopeless line.

This isn't his Dean. _His_ Dean is sarcastic and assertive and fights back even when he has no chance of winning. For all his immediate distrust of strangers, his Dean can love and trust the people who care for him so beautifully that being around his family with him is astounding. His Dean is_alive_, primal and sensual and commanding, or raw and emotional and protective. His Dean will slam an emotional door shut rather than risk this door being cracked open.

Castiel wants to hold Dean, tell him that he's waited decades and can wait for Dean to be free of this. Castiel wants to murder Alastair for having touched Dean, hurt him, broken him this way. The thought is damaging his remaining control. He can't do either of those things right now, and it hurts, feels as much as if his body's betraying him with its reaction to Dean like this as Dean must feel of himself. Because Dean is _hurting_ right now, physically and emotionally, and Castiel should be able to focus on that alone, not be wading through pheromones and chemical stimuli.

Cas tucks a hand down between Dean's chest and the mattress as he steps up behind him, and he carefully pries his wrists apart and presses upwards with the other palm to have him raise himself, voice strained. "No, Dean. Not like this. . . not with me. . ."

It sounds a little more like his Dean, buried underneath all of this, when his head turns and green eyes slant sideways towards Cas through thick lashes, his hands braced beneath him now but his body still bowed. "Then fucking do it already, Cas! _Please_, just..."

He _can't_ let Dean beg like that, he promised he wouldn't make him, promised he wouldn't hold back and 'tease.' The first thrust is almost violent, the hand against Dean's chest rising to yank back on his shoulder, force him backwards onto Castiel's cock in one sharp motion that sheaths him entirely and drags a moan out of each of them. Dean is searing hot and soaked enough that Castiel can feel slick against his thighs the moment he's flush against his mate, and some feral, long-denied part of Castiel _needs_ this, the way his mate responds for him when he does it again immediately. Dean is _his_, Castiel won't let anyone else be in the room with them, not even Dean's ghosts.

With both hands he pull Dean upright and away from that terrible display, manhandling him as Castiel joins him on the bed, knees folded beneath him, leaving them chest to back as Castiel moves them to the center of the mattress. One hand on Dean's shoulder and one on his hip to anchor him, he pulls him back into place every time the movements threaten to separate them, short thrusts that force sharp gasps from Dean until Castiel's fully satisfied with their position.

Castiel ducks his head down, dragging his tongue along curve of Dean's shoulder to taste the salt of his skin and mouthing the bend of Dean's neck, one arm locked tightly around his mate's waist to bounce him in place on Castiel's lap for the moment, but it's still not right for him yet and Cas can tell, his next command growled into the sweat-damp dip between Dean's shoulder blades. "Show me what you want."

Hard, punishing, the pace Dean sets is immediate and brutal, and for a few moments Castiel is just another toy in Dean's box, another way to force his body to the point of exhaustion, wring an unwilling orgasm out of himself so he can trigger a fake knot and curl into a ball to wait for the next wave of Heat to force him to start again. It has all of the finesse and care of any one of Alastair's 'clients.' And then quite abruptly he's_not_ the one controlling the ride. Castiel seems to have been holding his breath behind Dean, holding himself in, because he lets it out in an explosive exhalation that is half a moan and half Dean's name, seizes Dean's hips in a vice grip, and completely changes the rhythm—sharp thrusts and slow, dragging withdrawals that make Dean keen and whine, trapped by Castiel's iron grasp, and it's not at_ all_ what Dean asked for. Somehow, it's exactly what he needs, though. Dean's body bows sharply backwards, his head falling back onto Castiel's shoulder to bare the long line of his neck, and that seems to excite the hell out of the man behind him.

"You're beautiful. . . amazing. . ." Castiel's voice is an anchor to the present, and now that he's started he doesn't seem to be able to keep himself silent, an unending string of praise and worship and Dean's name and the sort of uninhibited moans that weren't going to endear them to the hotel for the next three days.

"Touch yourself, Dean. Come for me." His words are half a command, half a plea. He's so close, knot swelling and expanding, tying him to his mate, and it's all so much _more_ than he's ever felt, Dean tight around him and wet, every brush of their skin sends tingling shocks through his system. He's drowning in Dean, burning up with him, grinding his knot into Dean's prostate and his hand flies to join Dean's around his cock now that Dean can't pull away, the other flattened to Dean's chest over his heart as he tucks his face against Dean's bared neck, scraping his teeth over the tender flesh. "Come."

This isn't control. But it isn't forced, pitilessly punched out of Dean coupled with spite and vicious words. He's free, he's safe, and Castiel's repeating his name and broken praise against his skin, and the pleasure of it when he finally lets go is blinding.

Tugged down to lay beside Castiel among the scattered pillows, he is spooned into the question-mark curve of the Alpha's body as Cas rocks his hips slowly, intermittently, knot pulsing to fill his mate with his seed as he presses a kiss to the bare skin he can reach without moving, and closes his eyes. Dean grabs at one of the pillows and clings to it, burying his face into cushion, but Castiel doesn't attempt to tug it away. "Shh, Dean." Castiel strokes one hand up and down Dean's chest, the other arm wrapped around him, hand wet with Dean's come and pressed low on his stomach, fingers splayed wide, unconsciously protective and possessive in ways Dean really doesn't want to think about right now. Dean doesn't want to think at all.

Nuzzling closer, stubbled chin dragging over Dean's shoulder and neck, Castiel's words are meaningless comfort to him.

This isn't the first time Dean has ended up shaking and silently overwrought in Castiel's arms after letting go of his control. But it _will_ be the last tears he sheds over it.

xXx

"Your coat's over by the door and keeps buzzing at us." Dean's voice sounds almost normal again, but when Castiel opens his mouth to respond Dean presses back into him deliberately, rolling against Castiel's still knotted cock, tensing around him to milk another load of come and a low groan out of Castiel. Cas knows Dean's smirking, amused at his sensitivity, and though he bites his mate's freckled shoulder for teasing he's happy to have Dean back to himself even if Dean feels compelled to prove it in word and deed without addressing what happened.

"I was supposed to call your brother back. That's probably him." Cas admits, and then immediately regrets saying anything because Dean tenses against him. While that does all sorts of pleasant things to him physically, it also means trouble.

"So. Let me get this straight. You suddenly show up at the grocery store out of breath because you ran your dumb pedestrian ass there. Slam me up against a freezer and kick off a three day sex marathon. And you did it all because I wasn't there, you talked on the phone with my brother and you both decided helpless little old Omega Dean needed someone to mind him, and you promised to call him back once I was home safe and sound? Sound about right?"

Sam had almost _guaranteed _that Dean would hate being 'babysat.' When Castiel begins floundering for an answer that won't get him in trouble with the prickly creature in his arms, Dean stretches out across the rumpled bed, drawing a protesting and pained noise from Castiel when it pulls uncomfortably against his knot, and snatches up the hotel phone from the nightstand, jabbing numbers in by memory. They'll pay for the damn long distance fee.

"Hello?"

Sam sounds slightly out of breath, a little frantic, but it doesn't make Dean want to take pity on him right away. "You sent my boyfriend to_bodyguard_ me, Sammy? _Seriously?_"

"Dean." Sam breathes him name out in relief, and _then _processes the accusation. Dean can just picture him in his damned over-decorated law office, repeatedly dialing Cas while pretending to do paperwork, and now shuffling around sheepishly puppy-dog eyeing at nothing because he's been caught. "Um. . . kind of? I guess. But Cas found you, and you're both okay. . . ?"

"We're going to have this out later, Sam." Dean growls, eyes narrowing, before answering his question. "Yes, Cas found me. But he can't come to the phone today, he's a little. . ." Dean is a devious sonuvabitch himself when he wants to be: he shoves his ass back against Castiel and clenches down around his knot deliberately, and while it makes him sound breathless and more than a little fucked-out, it drags one of those irrepressible, carrying moans out of Castiel that they'd probably hear down in the damn lobby, let alone over the phone. ". . .tied up right now."

"Holy shit you can't call me while you're. . ." Sam splutters, mortified and prudish.

"Dean. . ." Castiel groans, burying his overheated face against Dean's neck, red with embarrassment, and hell if that doesn't sound like a moan again.

Punishment _delivered_. Two completely horrified Alphas dealt with. They wouldn't even be able to look each other in the eye right away next time they met.

"I'm going to hang up now, Dean." Sam sounds disturbed. "You two have. . . fun."

"Oh, we will. Talk to you in a few days." Dean disconnects with a leer, undulating his hips slowly, ceaselessly, and he's already hard again and wanting and Cas hasn't even pulled out yet. Time to see how long he can make the Alpha's knot last while he rides it, how well he can wring him dry. Dean drops the phone to the bed, hooks his arm backwards around Cas's shoulder, twines one leg over Cas's to spread himself open, give him that tiny bit more to thrust back into, and fists himself with his other hand as Castiel's fingers knead into his stomach reflexively. "You ready for round two yet?"

"'Round One' isn't over yet." Castiel protests, strained and panting, and Dean knows the Heat's getting to him again by the involuntary little rotating thrusts Castiel's offering him, shifting the knot as much as he can.

"Guess that makes this the bonus round, huh?" He smirks cheekily, fingers knotting into Castiel's hair tightly. "C'mon, Cas. Show me you can keep up."

xXx

He pays for it later when Cas decides the best, most 'sanitary' thing to do until he's hard again, for their long-term comfort (in his professional opinion, of course) and the preservation of the bed is shove a pillow under Dean's hips to angle him, haul his bowed legs onto Cas's shoulders, and lick him clean while fingering into his come-soaked hole as if he can push his claim deeper into Dean, paint it into the walls of him, indelibly mark him as taken. It's Dean's turn to pant and moan, trying to twist and writhe in his compromised position.

It doesn't take long for Castiel to be ready again, kissing him deeply as slides gingerly back into place, until Dean bites his lower lip warningly, finding words again finally. "Kinky bastard. What, going to try and buy a plug next to keep it all in?"

Castiel raises his head, blue eyes wide in revelation as if the idea never would have occurred to him, but now that Dean mentions it. . .

"No. And don't you dare fucking stop."

xXx

For all that the sex is great. . . and it is, it's fucking fantastic, especially when compared to any other Heat Dean has suffered through in his life . . . it's the other things that Dean finds himself unexpectedly enjoying. Castiel eventually taking it upon himself to play doctor, filling the ice bucket with hot water from the tub and essentially combining a sponge-bath and deep tissue massage to ease the knots out of his legs from riding Castiel so long, and no matter how much he protested at the start of the activity Dean may be a little in love with Cas's hands now. It's nice, like this: propped up in monogrammed pillows and with Cas wrapped around him as if he intends to spend the next couple of days doing his best impersonation of an Octopus, tangling their limbs together as they're tied, living in a haze of indolent pleasure and then worn-out intimacy that gives way to passion every time Dean finds himself needing more.

The first time someone knocks on the door Dean tenses in fear, skittish as a startled animal, until Castiel wraps a towel around his waist and brings the room service lunch in from where it has been left for them in the hall, resting the tray on the foot of the bed and dragging Dean into his lap. He insists on feeding Dean, thumb dragging against Dean's lower lip, fascinated with his mouth and Dean may play it up a little until they're both thoroughly distracted again, but Cas still manages, after, to get a full meal into them both to make up for the missed dinner of the night before, and their lack of breakfast.

"You can't afford all this, man." Dean finally lets himself protest as Cas pops a grape into his mouth, a simple china plate of fruit and cheese from the tray balanced on his chest now and Dean straddling him, leaned back against Castiel's bent knees as the dark haired man reclines into the pillows, one hand on Dean's hip and the other carefully selecting food for them. "This place ain't exactly cheap, and room service isn't cheap, and you're not exactly raking in the dough any more . . ."

Castiel ducks his head, looking away. "I have excellent credit, Dean."

"Uh-huh." The skeptical answer drags a quiet sigh out of Castiel. Dean's got a point: Castiel's jobless and living off of what's left in his savings, and so tying up a couple hundred of dollars a day into a hotel and all the meals is. . . unwise. Three nights here, room and board for all meals, will be equivalent to about a month's rent and groceries at this rate. He'd still do it again without hesitation.

"Dean, I want this. With you, I want this. It was closest hotel to where we were, and. . ." Castiel shrugs, the helpless little raise and drop of his shoulders that seems stilted and faintly awkward even in intimate settings, and the motion dislodges another grape that tries to roll down the angle of his body, captured before it can drop farther than his stomach. "It's an indulgence, but it's worth it to me. And I. . ." And if everything falls apart, if Dean does leave him when this is all over. . . he'll at least have had this. Even if he gets to keep this relationship with Dean, he knows this is not an opportunity they are likely to have again. _This_, this willingly shared Heat and intimacy, is a first time for both of them at last and he wants to give to _Dean_ something as far from the past experiences as he can get. He stares at the captured piece of fruit in his fingers, rather than Dean, and he knows he can't say any of that. He doesn't want to break this moment. "This way we don't have to cook? And they have extended cable." Dean rolls his eyes, unconvinced. "And they'll wash the bedding for us."

Dean's reading between the lines, hearing the subtext in the hesitations, and after a moment he carefully moves the plate off of Castiel and pushes up from his reclined position, drawing a hiss of discomfort and quiet moan from Castiel that he leans forward and kisses off of his lips. Not because his body's demanding another round of sex, not because he's trying to tease, but because he _wants_ to. Castiel's hands rise to cup Dean's cheeks, and he returns the gesture tenderly.

Castiel's stupidly in love and for right now, for the first time since they met and everything stacked itself against them, everything is precisely as he would wish it.

xXx

Dean wakes in the middle of the night, the first night, aching and terrified and haunted—green eyes wide and blank, still caught staring at images of his nightmares until he can focus on Castiel in the sudden light of the lamp. And he can't. He can't look him in the eye. Can't have this. Can't think. Can't handle the hesitation as Castiel's hand hovers just over his skin, unsure of if he should touch him or if it would make things worse.

"I need a shower. I'll. . ." He can't find an end to that sentence and doesn't try, just stumbles gracelessly off of the bed and limps into the bathroom, turning the water as cold as it will get as he steps under the spray, arms hugged to himself and head bowed, trying to flush the heat out of his system, teeth chattering and fingernails digging into his own skin like he can scratch it out of himself. He never gets the chance.

Castiel's sudden presence behind him is surprising, the line of his body pressed to Dean as he wraps one arm around his mate to hold him close and reaches past him with the other to turn the temperature of the water and drop the plug, water filling the tub. This time he isn't hesitating, pulling Dean down with him, holding him close, rubbing circulation into his limbs. He tells Dean he loves him as clearly as he can without using the words, until Dean is back with him.

They make love in the tub and Dean curls into his chest half-asleep afterwards, until the water around them is tepid and their fingers and toes are pruned and Castiel's knot recedes. He half-carries his mate back to bed, ducked under his arm, and wraps around him again as he buries them under the soft covers.

xXx

The red light on the hotel phone is blinking, a message, and Castiel frowns at it as Dean makes use of the bathroom. It takes two tries following the instructions for him to learn that they have a package waiting in the lobby, and he squints in confusion, head cocking to the side and then knocks on the bathroom door to tell Dean he'll be stepping out momentarily. He receives what may be a response as Dean brushes his teeth using the free hotel provided toothbrush, so he steps into his old BDUs and snags Dean's t-shirt, shrugging it on quickly before padding barefoot to the lobby carrying their empty room service trays as he does.

It's a different clerk, but he's receiving looks from most of the employees he comes across.

He also smells like sex, and sex with an Omega in heat specifically. The looks aren't unexpected, nor is how people seem to keep showing up as if to get a glimpse of him. Frankly, as far as he's concerned, they should reimburse him some of the cost of staying there, because whatever couple stays in their room next will _thoroughly _enjoy the experience, Castiel can assure them.

The package, it turns out, is from Ellen. Ellen, who upon not being able to hail Dean on his phone apparently utilized whatever technical wizardry had given her Castiel's background to find his recent credit card purchases, determine exactly what hotel they were in and in what room, and then came by to hand-deliver the package to the clerk and ensure that Dean was in fact there with him.

She left them a duffel bag. Dean's duffel bag, to be precise. The one that until yesterday was sitting on top of the dresser in Castiel's locked apartment. Which meant that someone, likely Jo, _broke into his apartment_ and gathered a change of clothes for both of them, basic toiletries, Dean's phone, and a round of birth control pills that Dean has apparently been using.

Never in Castiel's life experience has a gesture of genuine love and care been so utterly terrifying a demonstration that he needs to behave himself and remain in the good graces of the Harvelle women.

When he lets himself back into the hotel room, turning to deadbolt and chain lock the door behind him again, he addresses Dean standing frozen still behind him in the room. "Your family is somewhat frightening, Dean."

He doesn't get an answer in reply. Not verbally, at least.

It seems that Dean apparently is _very_ fond of him in his old uniform pants. This time they _don't_ make it back to the bed.

xXx

"You rug-burned my knees, jackass." Dean grouses over a lunch spent spooned together in bed, and Castiel snorts, snuggling further into the pillows beneath them, exhausted.

"_You_ jumped _me_, Dean. Besides which, you'll be fine. I think I may never be able to stand again once this is over." Dean rolls his eyes and his hips, drawing another uncomfortable hiss, proving a point and getting a scowl directed at his back for it. "Whine to someone who don't have it worse."

"I had little to no practical experience to know how taxing this could be." Castiel counters, and even this is comfortable. This is practically becoming normal for them, arguments with no heat behind them, a battle of wills that they both win because they enjoy it. The beat of silence from Dean lasts a shade too long without one of his usual witty comebacks, and Cas drops a kiss onto his shoulder, tightening his arms around his mate again, one hand to his belly and one to his chest.

"It's usually a lot worse, Cas." Dean finally admits, and this time his voice is serious, quiet, and he slips his arm over Castiel's to hug him back in a way, their fingers lacing together on Dean's stomach. "It's better like this. I. . ." Dean's chewing over his thoughts, weighing how far he's willing to reveal himself. ". . .I actually _like_ this. With you. A lot."

There's a lot more to that admission than meets the eye. Left alone the nightmares win, and together like this Dean isn't fighting what his body is asking for but working with it. More than that, though. . . Dean's confession isn't about the sex or about the memories. It's about the _emotion_.

Castiel smiles against Dean's skin, closes his eyes and pulls his mate closer, leaving their hands linked together.

"I do too." It's as close to an _I love you_ as they can give each other right now. "Rest, Dean, while we can."


	18. Chapter 18

The last day of Dean's Heat is usually the worst. Not because the urges are stronger, that stupid biological clock wired into his physiology ticking down to the next screaming alarm telling him he needs to be fucked right the hell _now_ . . . but because he's _beat_. Sex can be great, sure, but three days is a damn long time to maintain any physical activity.

By day three, he's usually a psychological wreck, sleepless from the nightmares and nauseated by the flashbacks, malnourished because of the effort it takes to choke down food when you're already tasting bile, more than a little tender from the rough treatment he gives himself, and he just wants it to _stop_, wants to know that it _will_stop, that the next time won't just drag on without relief, leave him in that state forever, weeks and months on end without it going away no matter how many times he's _used_.

When it finally leaves him, he doesn't believe it immediately. There's not some timer that dings and tells him he's done; he has to wait, tense and nervous, unable to move on with his normal routine or start the necessary chores and tasks that'll make the place liveable again, make him _himself_again. And then he has to be ready to walk into the garage the next day and pretend he had an awesome fucking three day weekend fishing, or visiting an uncle, or whatever bullshit excuse Bobby backs for him, thanks. It usually takes a couple of days for him to really settle back into his own skin again, shove it aside and flash a grin that isn't calculated and practiced bullshit.

The last day is usually the worst.

But there's something about this entire experience with Cas. . .

He woke up just long enough on the second night to realize that Castiel was kissing his temple, tugging him closer, half asleep but apparently alert enough to have recognized a nightmare before it got its hooks in too deeply, before it got too bad. Dean doesn't know if Cas had been watching him sleep, or if his body's response to Dean woke him, but they end up spooned together, Castiel rocking into him after the knot has taken, soothing him back to sleep while the Alpha stays awake and deep within him.

On the third night when he wakes up, the heat is there but not the terror. He wakes Castiel with a blow job to get him hard again, ready again, and then promptly mounts him when he's just beginning to swell beneath Dean's hands, ignoring the twinge of pushing that increasing girth past his rim and ending up draped across Cas's chest as the Alpha props himself in pillows to keep the angle and wraps around him again.

Cas's plush lower lip looks bruised and tender all three nights, come morning, at his efforts to keep himself quiet and gentle and let Dean doze even while he was split open around Cas and pumped full. The guy with zero sex experience is the one who isn't even getting to catnap after they knot like Dean is. In retrospect, this entire experience is probably the first time Dean hasn't envied the extended orgasm factor of being an Alpha. Not that Cas is complaining. He sleeps between waves of heat, and even when he's entirely unconscious it's like he's trying to crawl beneath Dean's skin, get a little closer. Dean tries to reward him as best he can with touch and by taking a page out of Cas's book and kissing him like he can pour all of his gratitude into the gesture without having to talk about whatever this is that's happening.

That last day, though. . . a day that is usually so painful and so miserable, is in some ways the best this time. Lazy, lethargic sex with a rumple-haired, sleepy-eyed Castiel cuddling into him immediately afterwards like he's the best fucking thing in the world is. . .

God, it's nice. Tangled limbs and slow movement and Cas wrapping around him in some state between sleep and wakefulness and completely unabashed affection until he has to tumble out of the bed and get their meals, or bring both of them to the bathroom to soak in the oversized tub and have sex that threatens to slosh the water out, before rolling back beneath the covers again once they're able. Dean will never admit to being a cuddler, but . . . well, Cas clearly is, and who is he to say no to the guy during this, right?

Right.

It's getting late in the course of things, and he's between right now. Castiel's head is pillowed on his chest, a heavy arm thrown over him, legs tangled together, but Dean's more awake than the Alpha is. He's in that state where he's not sure if he should expect to be jumping Cas's bones again in another twenty minutes or so, or if he's finally home free, but he's generally. . . well, he's more okay with it either way than he'd like to really think about. Pressing a kiss to the top of Castiel's sleeping head, he fumbles for the remote control on the nightstand, turning the TV down to a comfortable level, and he waits to see if it's going to bother the sleeping man curled around him.

Nothing. Not a twitch.

Once he's confirmed Castiel's general state of sex-induced coma, he lets himself channel surf. And by 'channel surf' he means deliberately flip past two car shows, a half dozen action flicks, and a sci-fi to end up on Doctor Sexy.

"Small-Cell Carcinoma."

The episode is only ten minutes in when Castiel scares the shit out of him by suddenly speaking without moving at all, his voice gravelly with sleep and faintly bored. He casts a baleful eye up at Dean as the remote control whacks him in the shoulder when Dean drops it in surprise at having been found out, before closing his eyes again and nuzzling his cheek against Dean's skin, an action that is becoming more and more like being cuddled by sandpaper as their stay lengthens.

"Holy shit you scared me."

"Mm. Clearly." Castiel grunts in agreement, apparently comfortable with having tenderized his pillow and settling again. "Small-Cell Carcinoma. The shrill voiced woman's patient. The male doctor everyone is fawning over, the blood transfusions are killing his patient. Vibrio vulnificus. They made too much of a production out of her ordering oysters for it to be otherwise, and it's summer. Though the bacterial infection is likely complicated by a secondary condition suppressing her immune system. I'm sure they'll conveniently find that out before the next commercial break to allow time for him to treat her."

Dean stares down at Castiel until he cracks an eye open again, an eyebrow arched questioningly. "They're too obvious about it. The diagnosis could be picked out of a table of contents from a medical text and their patients present their conditions like they're acting out a bullet list of symptoms." Castiel turns his eyes to the TV screen for a moment, corners of them creasing as he squints critically. "Those boots are stupid and impractical in a hospital setting. His feet would be killing him by the end of the. . ."

"Leave the boots alone, Cas." Dean grumbles warningly. "I'm willing to overlook you criticizing the medical crap, but Doctor Sexy's boots are sacred."

Castiel pulls away finally, muting the television with the remote before propping himself up on his fist beside Dean in the pillows, eyeing him suspiciously. "You told me that the 'doctor talk' wasn't sexy."

"No, I told you that _your_ 'doctor talk' wasn't sexy. Dude, you were. . ." He doesn't get the chance to finish criticizing Cas's technique. Castiel rolls on top of him neatly, one hand braced into the pillow and the other cupping Dean's cheek, and for a moment they're just breathing each other's air, Castiel's lips close enough to brush Dean's when he speaks, and there's a clear sense that a challenge has been thrown and then accepted by the doctor.

"Did you know. . ." Castiel catches Dean's lower lip between his with barely any pressure at all, tongue swiping across the plump flesh. Dean can feel it even once Castiel is done, leaving his lips tingling as Cas continues in a voice that is rich and dark. ". . . That there are more nerve endings in your _lips_ . . ." Castiel's tongue dips into Dean's mouth, the lightest caress before he withdraws ". . .and your _tongue_. . than you have any other single part of your body?"

"Not sure what you're. . ." Dean is_not_going to be drawn in by this, damnit, but Castiel smiles faintly and he can feel the movement tug against his lips before Castiel kisses him slowly, deeply, and _God_ that's good. It's over too soon, leaving him straining to try and reconnect them and being deliberately rebuffed by Castiel's forehead resting against his as he continues huskily.

"_Ten thousand_nerve endings, Dean . . ." He tilts his head again, teeth scraping over Dean's tender lip gently, and repositions himself with both elbows braced, bracketing Dean in and propping Cas up above him. "And every one of them is singing messages back to your brain . . ." His fingers slide into Dean's hair, as if he can follow the path of those zinging neurons, racing with sensation into Dean's skull. ". . . Blood vessels dilate, flood your brain with oxygen. . ." Cas runs the tip of his nose along Dean's, his breath still washing over Dean's slack lips, and he presses another brief kiss to them because he can't resist. "Makes you dizzy." His fingers scrape over Dean's scalp now gently, bringing him back to the brain. "A good kiss sends sensation straight to your limbic system. . . the brain's center for emotion, passion, love. . ." Castiel raises his gaze away from Dean's mouth at that last word, blue eyes meeting green, and he has to swallow before continuing, not as unaffected by his own speech as he would like to appear. "That's where your _soul_ lives, Dean."

Oh, yes. He's contrarily combining neurology and endocrinology and religion, "priest talk" and "doctor talk." It's a large part of who he is, now, well beyond if he's actually employable in either role any longer. Whatever Dean's earlier protestation about combining those two professions when describing him, _this_ is clearly working. Dean is tired of being teased, and he shoves Castiel off of him finally, rolling them on the king-sized bed to take control again. Castiel digs the remote out from under his back and throws it indiscriminately, quite happy with the change of positions. On the screen behind Dean, Dr. Sexy is determining that his patient suffers from hereditary hemochromatosis complicating the bacterial infection that Cas correctly diagnosed. Castiel would be arguing with the screen that they should have simply gotten a better patient history and spared the world thirty minutes of overblown medical 'drama' to go with their soap operatic hospital romances, but he currently has Dean Winchester naked and kissing him for all that he's worth, and he doesn't give a damn at all any more about the sudden jealousy he'd felt of over his mate's clear attraction for a _fictional_ doctor, or the fact that the TV remote hits the wall and sends batteries rolling.

Instead, he uses the moment Dean's lips travel the curve of his jaw to his neck to close his eyes to desperately try to remember what he was saying, keep going. "Kissing floods your brain with dopamine. . . chemical happiness and elation and _craving_, Dean. The addictive centers of our brains. . ." He _can't_ keep his hands off of Dean, now, needs the sensations, and he knows he's proving his own point but he needs _more_, laying an open mouthed kiss to Dean's shoulder as the Omega drags his lips over the stubble painting his skin before kissing the bend of his neck, feeling his Alpha's pulse beneath his lips. "But kissing on the _mouth_, Dean. . ." He hauls his mate back into place, cupping his cheeks and kissing him again to illustrate the point, slow and intimate, then breathing his next words into the cave of Dean's mouth. "Oxytocin. The bond between souls. Strongest between parents and children or _mates_." He's having trouble again finding words, but that could be the fact that Dean has used their position to slide back onto Castiel's traitorously hard cock. Dean isn't interrupting him, though, forcing him to stop, and that's practically an _order_to keep going. His mate is riding him slowly, shallow thrusts, nothing like the desperation of the past three days.

Castiel is all-in. He can't pretend to be unaffected by this change between them. Closing his eyes, he tips his head back as the wet clench of Dean's muscles seems to react around him, tightening, and he's breathless when he makes himself continue, hoarse and rasping, his hands sliding up and down Dean's skin without taking control of the pace. "Alpha and Omega, Dean. We're not just transmitters and receptors of lust and mating pheromones. That's. . . God, Dean. . ." His eyes open again at the tail end of his moan, wide and blue and earnest, and he cups his hand to Dean's neck to bring him back to his lips. He thrusts his hips just once against Dean's rhythm, indicatively. ". . ._that's_ brainstem." And then he kisses Dean softly, to illustrate the difference, as if he can feel his soul light up at the sensation. "Limbic system. Dopamine and Oxytocin. We're a. . ." Dean is singularly distracting ". . . a closed feedback loop for sharing happiness and contentment and love."

It's the second time he's used the word, and Dean hasn't missed it either time. This time, Dean doesn't let him speak again, captures his lips and keeps them as he rides Castiel slowly, and neither of them can pretend this is the Heat. Their kisses linger, they make love without any chance of denying that is precisely what they're doing.

Dean's heat is officially over.

xXx

It's four o'clock in the morning and Dean Winchester is wide awake, sore and exhausted but sated . . . and loved.

Castiel is once again flung halfway across him, and despite the acres of bed and the abundance of pillows he's snoring softly with his head on Dean's chest as if he needs the reassuring thump of Dean's heartbeat just to sleep. The hotel blankets are pulled up to just under his chin, and there's something almost childlike and vulnerable about that, making Castiel seem smaller and less intimidating than he is. Dean splays his hand against Cas's back and watches the light of a muted infomercial paint the Alpha's features in light and colors, changeable shadows like digital firelight. They couldn't find both of the remote batteries, there's no damned buttons on the stupid fancy television itself, and the dresser is bolted into the floor, keeping them from reaching the plug, so they've been stuck with a silent television through meals and naps and a level of quiet domesticity that Dean should quail against. Instead, he petted Castiel's ridiculous untamed sex-hair and concocted increasingly ludicrous plots for the silent dramas on the TV, winning a few of Castiel's silent chuckles and one full-bodied laugh that Dean wishes he could have bottled and preserved because he already knows how rare they are.

Cas insisted on staying the extra night, and he should have fought that harder, but there's a sense of oasis here. Dean can't help but feel that their happiness is soap-bubble fragile, delicate and just waiting for life to come pop it. Even now he could reach out and end it with a harsh touch, and there's a small part of him that thinks he _should_. It's going to burst anyway, and the aftermath is easier to handle emotionally if he's the one that controls it.

The only thing keeping him from walking out the door and screwing his head on straight is the Alpha cuddled into him. Not his physical weight pressing Dean to the bed, but the emotional weight of him. The past three days should have been horrible. . . but they _weren't_. It's a whole new view of life, a diametric shift of his understanding of the world, and it's terrifying as hell and he _wants_ it. Going back to what he's had before after this would be torturous, and that's not a word Dean uses lightly.

Castiel has leashed him with gentle touches and soft words and fucking oxytocin and dopamine and limbic systems, and he feels rewired by it, like Castiel has tangled himself into Dean's 'soul' as much as around his body. Now that Cas has said it he swears he can feel the contentment rolling off of the Alpha in his arms, and it's heady and it's natural and uninvasive and warm, but it's also scary as hell. Because Castiel's actually, really, completely_in_ _love with him_.

Dean's sure he's not capable of any kind of healthy love, and Cas deserves a hell of a lot better than what he has to give. It's selfish of him to crave something he can't offer in return, and he's scum of the fucking earth for using Castiel like this. He should break this off before he screws both of them over. . . but he _can't._No, worse than that, he doesn't _want_ to.

When five o'clock rolls around and he's still awake, he presses a kiss to the top Castiel's head and slips out of the bed and from beneath him to the shower, scrubbing himself down and leaving himself raw and healthy pink and clean-smelling and masked again. Cas is asleep on the bed still when he comes out, spooned around a pillow in his arms that by the faint frown on his sleeping face is an inadequate substitute for holding Dean, and it makes Dean snort softly and ruffle a hand over his hair affectionately, pulling back when the Alpha unconsciously leans into the touch rather than risk waking him.

"Be right back." He promises the sleeping man, and dresses quickly and far away from the bed in the fresh clothes Jo sent, peeling the static-clinging sweet-smelling dryer sheet off of his sleeve and blessing Jo for remembering how to handle his stuff. He grabs his phone and slips out of the room before Cas can wake or the smell of sex and heat permeating their space can wrap around him again, and pads barefoot down to the lobby with a nod for a wide-eyed clerk who is staring at him as if terrified he's going to lunge across the desk between them. How scary _was_ Cas to get a room in this place without reservation when they showed up, anyway? He flashes the kid a faint smirk, and cancels the room service for the morning, and then goes to fill up a few plates from the complimentary continental breakfast instead.

The only other person in the room this early in the morning is a shorter man in an impeccable black suit and black dress shirt, a patterned slate tie neatly providing the bare contrast to his look and silver tie pin and cufflinks a purely decorative walking cane that pushes his outfit over into ostentatiousness. "Good morning." He greets in a deep voice with an accent that's Scottish or British or something, and Dean stops in the doorway and eyes him warily: dark thinning hair, a sharp intelligence in his dark eyes, and a faint smirk curling his lips like he knows something Dean doesn't.

"Morning." Dean offers cautiously in return, and piles his plate up higher.

"Honeymoon over, then?" The stranger asks, personable and slightly mocking, and Dean stiffens further and ignores him, before stalking back out of the day room with their breakfast. The interaction unsettles him and he's not sure why, but he puts it out of his head as he checks his email on his phone for the first time in three days, unsurprised when the first thing he gets is an email from Sam's personal account that starts with calling him a jackass for making him listen to Cas's sex moans, and goes on into lawyer-speak about depositions and the ringer attorney the jackasses apparently hired from out of state to represent them, some asshole named Crowley.

He doesn't have time to get much farther than that, shoving his phone back in his pocket and pulling out the key card instead. Creepy guy from the day room is coming down the hall, now, and he gives a little mocking half-wave with his fingertips to Dean as he smirks and slips into his own room across the hall. Dean glares after him, waiting until he's gone before opening the door, preserving Castiel's privacy.

Cas is sitting up in the bed, blinking sleepily, a worried frown on his face that melts away when Dean comes back in, as if he just woke up and realized Dean was gone and had no idea if he was coming back. His fucked up issues are giving the poor guy a complex. "Breakfast. Probably saved you thirty bucks or something, but it's better than nothing. Give me a sec, they've got one of those stupid little two-cup coffee pots on the counter, I'll get you some caffeine before we check out. . ."

He doesn't get the chance to step away from putting the plate down on the nightstand. Castiel catches his wrist and reels him back in for a good morning kiss that drives away all other thoughts, wraps him in that warmth and contentment and happiness that's gotta be coming from Cas.

"Good morning, Dean." Castiel rumbles against his lips, eyes closed from the kiss and hands woven into his hair, warm and naked and pleased.

Damnit. Dean _can't_ give this up.

He's hooked.


	19. Chapter 19

"You're never driving my baby again." Dean pets a hand down the hood of his car, comforting a wounded animal, and glares at the terrible parking job Castiel gave her before descending upon the hotel days before. Castiel, for his part, drops the duffle bag into the back seat as he slides into the front passenger side without protest, and carefully resists rolling his eyes at his mate as he tilts his head back against the seat and breathes in the smell of warm leather and Dean. Dean clambers inside after him and starts the car up with its distinctive roar, and Castiel rolls his head to the side to look at Dean and answers finally.

"I like your car. But the turning radius is. . ."

Dean stops him, one finger raised warningly, a scowl on his features though Castiel can tell it's mostly affectation. "You criticize my car and you're walking to the Roadhouse. It's not her fault you're a shitty driver."

"I was distracted." Castiel's reminder is wry, but gets him no sympathy. He's alright with being a passenger, though. He could get used to riding with Dean this way, settled into the shotgun seat of his car. He has good experiences with this car already, picturing blue tarp-covered windows and heated kisses, or the sight of Dean flush cheeked with Heat and fingering himself on the back seat before Cas threw a coat over him, or. . .

Or now, with Dean drumming his hands on the steering wheel to an old tape of AC/DC, the sun on his face bringing the smattering of freckles across his cheeks into sharper relief, the windows rolled down, more relaxed than he ever seemed to be elsewhere. It's odd, but in their whirlwind relationship Castiel has never really seen Dean be _Dean_ like this and while he would like to think he plays a part in that, he wonders if a large part of that isn't this car as well. The car was damaged and battered and carved with slurs against Dean when he first encountered it at the hospital, and then tucked away beneath tarp and hidden at Castiel's home. Dean sanded away the scars violently at Winchesters', and painted her anew after deciding to square off against his past and face it. Dean and his car have been on this journey _together_somehow, and now behind the wheel Castiel is getting to see a new side of Dean that their mess has kept from him until now. He _likes_it.

"Still creepy, Cas." Dean quips idly, smirk tugging at his lips and belying his words as he brings them into traffic, and Castiel has to remind himself to blink and look away, knowing he's already been caught staring. "We still gotta get you that neon sign, though. You've had plenty of time to recover and you still look a little. . ."

"Thunderstruck?" Castiel supplies in a deadpan over the ringing lyrics of the self-same song, winning a laugh from Dean that has Castiel trying not to smile too obviously at having been able to coax the sound from Dean. "Maybe a little." Maybe a lot. The world seems very different now, on the other side of these past few days. He's not sure he'll ever be capable of being discrete over how much Dean affects him. "Why are we going to the Roadhouse? Not that I have anything pressing to do otherwise, but. . ."

Dean shifts on the seat to dig his phone out of his pocket, and Castiel finds the motion entirely too fascinating, but catches the phone when it's tossed to him. "Check the messages. Jo called. Seems the assholes' lawyer has been busy since we disappeared. Pulled the Roadhouse crew in for depositions before the trial about the night before the fight at the hospital. Jo seems to think we need to check in with her and Ellen before we get blindsided."

Castiel frowns down at the phone in his hands, reality intruding unpleasantly on his happiness. "The trial."

"Yeah. That thing we gotta win so you don't end up bankrupt and in prison." Dean affirms, and for a moment his knuckles whiten in their grip on the wheel. Castiel sighs quietly, and slides the phone back to Dean without checking the messages, looking out the window instead.

"I remember." The silence has little chance to become maudlin, as the song changes and Dean snorts in sudden amusement and then holds a finger up to shut Castiel up long before he has the chance to recognize the tune or formulate a comment.

"Not a damn word, Cas."

Dean ends up singing snatches of "You Shook Me All Night Long" along with the car stereo despite his warning to Cas, and Castiel lets himself relax again. They cannot, no matter how much Castiel keeps wishing for it, entirely escape the real world. Every time Cas thinks they might for a while just be able to _be_, something dashes that rather naïve hope brutally. They need to learn how to live in the world as it is and reassume control of what they can in it, and Cas wants to build something for themselves rooted within it.

Dean by Castiel's side, comfortable in his own skin behind the wheel and ready to fight for their freedom seems an excellent place to begin.

xXx

There are three men in the Roadhouse, and Castiel feels the first twinge of territoriality over Dean the moment they walk in the bar and all three look up. Dean is _his_ mate, and after days tangled together building on that bond, after three days of Dean's Heat playing on every biological imperative wired into their systems, he wants to wrap himself around Dean protectively until everyone here knows that. He gets an immediate look from Dean after walking in and a faintly exasperated reminder about personal space.

Castiel doesn't _want_ personal space. But he reluctantly complies, letting Dean get two steps ahead of him before following in his footsteps. He's still close enough to reach Dean before anyone else in the room would have a chance. There's interest there: either these are Roadhouse regulars who saw the confrontation, word has gotten around, or Dean's myriad soaps and scents are less effective just after his Heat than he wants to admit.

Or maybe Castiel's over-protectiveness is making him slightly paranoid.

"Alright. I got an appointment to keep, Ricky, so pay up." Jo's been hustling the bar's clientele again, Dean notes with amusement as she flashes her newest victim that infectious Harvelle grin, bends low over the pool table one last time in with her tank top riding up to show the dimple of her back, and methodically clears the table before taking Ricky's hard-earned cash, tucking it into her bra strap. Dean knows that's 90% of the reason some people let themselves be hustled by the girl multiple times; to get her focused attention, one of her triumphant looks, watch her play the game and watch her walk away. Right to Dean this time.

Dean's pretty sure a few bad porno plots went through that dirty old man's head at seeing the pretty Beta blonde immediately grab on to the Omega's arm and haul him off. He's also pretty sure without looking that Cas is attempting to glare a hole through the guy now. "Pretty sure that's cheating, Jo. And didn't Ellen chew you out for sharking here?"

"You know she did, she chewed you out too for teaching me. Not my fault they don't tip for crap otherwise, and I got better at it than you." Dean scoffs. They're going to have that competition someday before she starts getting too cocky. "Anyway, you're just calling it cheating because if I weren't practically your sister by the time I hit puberty you'd have been all over me too." Dean fakes a look of consideration and nods, and Jo slaps him on the shoulder as she slides behind the bar, grabbing her apron and folding it over, tying it around her waist. "Mom's out getting pretzels and beer nuts. You get me instead, which is just as well, she's worried and you know what that means. Alright, you want the bad news?"

"Yeah, hit me." Dean reaches out to grab Castiel's arm and pull him down into the chair beside him at the bar so he stops the creepy staring thing. Jo, meanwhile, gets everyone at the bar taken care of for their drinks adeptly, blonde curls bouncing as she finishes back in front of Dean, passing them both a draft. Castiel frowns at his drink briefly, and at Dean's as well. It was lunchtime by checkout at the hotel, and they lingered until they had to leave, but he isn't quite comfortable yet with how much of their time they seem to have a drink in their hands.

"Alright. Their lawyer? He's scary smart, and he's slippery. Makes you start tripping over your own tongue kind of crap, because he tries to twist things all around. The deposition, they're like testimony for the trial, but preserved on paper so that he doesn't have to call on us if he doesn't want to. It was all about how we could only answer questions posed to us, just like we're in court. He was asking me about the night at the bar. Did the guy lay a hand on you first, did you attack him without physical provocation, all that." Dean frowns, folding his arms on the bar and narrowing his eyes at Jo as she catches her lip between her teeth. He's known the kid since she was just a half-pint Shirley Temple years off from needing even a training bra, and they've gotten into plenty of trouble together and individually; he knows her lying faces. He knows she's holding back.

"What else?"

"He asked about Cas being there, and got interested in him buying you drinks." Jo admits slowly, looking to Castiel as he turns his head to fully engage in the conversation, squinting critically. "I mean, I made it clear you two never even spoke to each other that night, but he kept phrasing things . . . weirdly. Like he was trying to make my answers fit a story he was telling. Mom seemed pretty ticked by how he was manipulating things too when she got out of the room with him, and now she's about 90% sure that the only testimony he's going to allow from us is right there on his paper."

Dean curses quietly, and Jo nods, shrugging helplessly. "Talked to Sam afterwards, but he was pulling a tightlipped Winchester act, wouldn't say much." Dean flicks her off as he picks up his beer, and Castiel gets the feeling this is a common complaint from the Harvelle women about the Winchester brothers. "Said to have you two call him once you weren't tied up. . ." Castiel can _feel_ himself flush at the wording and Jo catches it, resting her chin on her fist and watching him in apparent fascination. "Geeze, I didn't mean it like _that_, but yeah. Sure. That too."

Dean is absolutely no help. He's smirking faintly now too, and it's obvious to Castiel that his head went right back to that first night between them too and Dean ensuring Castiel would never be able to hear that common phrase again without it being sexualized, even ignoring their myriad activities during his Heat. Nevertheless, he pulls them back on topic: Dean with a mission seems fairly focused, and he has made ensuring Castiel gets through this trial against them unscathed his mission. "Okay. What else you got, Jo?"

"Well. . ." Jo drags the word out and glances at her other patrons, engaged in their own conversations, before leaning over the counter towards Dean. "I got a little stir crazy. This is really worrying me and I really thought you ought to be able to get a listen to what you're up against. Which kind of brings us to our. . . well, mine and Ash's. . . questionable activity of the past couple days. I got Ash trying to get us a copy of the deposition recordings instead of just the papers, so you can hear this guy do the word-games thing. There's some kind of legal mumbo-jumbo about why you can't have a copy of what I said, and why I can't get you anything . . . "

"I'd assume confidentiality in part." Their quick looks of disdain at the word reaffirms to Castiel that this family is apparently not particularly adept at that concept, considering how quickly they had his personal records in front of them after meeting him. "Lawyers and doctors. There are strict laws and rules governing our actions. I believe if I requested it of Sam directly you would have more luck obtaining what he is legally permitted to release."

"Uh-huh. Well, don't tell Dr. Badass that." Both of Castiel's eyebrows rise sharply at the name. "Yo, Ash!" Jo's voice is carrying even over the jukebox music, and the conversation of the men at the bar, and no one but Castiel seems startled by that volume coming from Jo Harvelle's slender frame as she bustles across the bar, half-assing taking care of the early afternoon regulars to bang her fist against a door to the side of the bar. Cas, meanwhile, leans into Dean's shoulder and lowers his tone, lips close to Dean's ears and voice a suggestive rumble, spreading his hand over the dip of Dean's lower back.

"I assume no relation to Doctor Sexy?" He gets elbowed in the ribs for the teasing and a grumbled 'shut up,' but from what he can see Dean's ears are slightly pinked and Castiel takes great pleasure in having _finally_ turned the tables in that, this strange growing vocabulary of accidental and deliberate innuendos. When Jo turns back to them, she sees something in Dean's face and smiles, picking up where she had been before summoning the strange looking man now opening a door off of the main bar. "Anyway, yeah, I sort of. . . _suggested_. . . to Ash that it might be cool if you could hear this guy for yourself, and he went to try and poke around. Come to find out, someone involved in this mess is like. . . really good at computers, works at your brother's office, and is actually keeping him out of anything remotely related to the case."

"Huh. I didn't think that was possible." Dean's brow rises, a mocking smirk on his lips as he turns to the man sidling up to him, bracketing Dean in between the stranger and Castiel. Cas stiffens at this unknown man's nearness as he settles onto the corner stool beside Dean like it was made for him. "Aren't you supposed to be the genius tech wizard here, dude?"

"I am still the Wiz. Whoever this chick is. . . she's _good_. Like. . . " He whistles low, between his teeth in admiration and runs a hand through his hair. . . hair that seems to drag on over his shoulder, a mullet direct from the 1980s that has Castiel staring in bewilderment. ". . . good."

Ash has somehow acquired a mug of beer between the strange room off of the bar and the stool, and looks absolutely nothing like Castiel would imagine a genius. He sounds faintly stoned, and the mullet is somehow the least of his strange appearance. The flannel shirt he's wearing has both sleeves chopped off entirely at the shoulder and down far enough to reveal several of his ribs, and is left open over a bare chest and a tacky necklace. His jeans are more ripped than whole, and his computer when he drops it onto the bar is a strange Frankenstein-like amalgam of technology. Between his bizarre appearance and complete lack of sexual interest in Dean, Castiel is at least not concerned any more, but he is morbidly fascinated by this strange addition to Dean's extended family.

"Ash is in love with her." Jo confides, grinning mischievously. "I think it's the first time anyone's ever kept him _out_ of something he wants into, and they've been playing the hacker-geek version of footsie the past two days. He's totally getting his ass kicked at his own game by some girl calling herself 'The Queen of Moons.'"

"She's not 'kicking my ass.' She just doesn't think like _people_, you know?" Castiel doesn't even pretend to know what that means. Neither do Dean or Jo. "Look . . . people, like machines, they tend to think in definable patterns, you get me? It's about cracking the program, finding out the coding. She's complete chaos. Can't predict her."

There is no doubting by his tone that he finds this an admirable trait, rather than actually concerning. The entire situation, to him, is just an unexpected and entertaining challenge.

"So you're calling her potentially psychotic. You have never met her. Know nothing about her. She is recreationally thwarting you in your usual endeavors. And you're in love with her?" Castiel questions slowly, brows drawn together. Dean snorts at the complete confusion on his boyfriend's face and then slides his mug towards Cas the moment he goes to wash this baffling thought down with a pull of his drink and finds out that leaving beer unattended at the Roadhouse is a quick way to lose it to Ash. Jo smiles at the casual intimacy between Dean and Cas, turning away before Dean can catch her amusement at the continuing signs of a burgeoning romance. Seriously, this is better than most of the crap she has to watch at the Roadhouse.

"He's head over heels, sight-unseen. Completely obsessed with her brain." Jo confirms, making a vague effort to take care of the older patrons at the bar, highly amused at Ash's plight. "Alright, Ash. Castiel here thinks we should call it quits and let him call his lawyer and get the information from Sam the legit way. . ." Ash's disgruntled expression looks odd on his face, unpracticed, at the end to their game. "Yeah, well, you had your chance. You want to see if we can learn anything about your lady love or not?"

"Yeah, no. I'm not playing Geek-Love Connection for you. Just stop playing 'footsie' ask for her email address or whatever it is nerds use for pickup lines." Dean has his phone out already, rolling his eyes at Jo and Ash as his brother's phone starts ringing, pushing away from the bar and Jo's perpetual knowing looks at him and Cas. "Hey, Sammy. Yeah, we're good. Yeah, _really_. What've you got for. . .?"

Jo is leaning over the bar very much into Castiel's personal space, deceptively innocent doe eyes intent on him now that Dean has dismissed them to start getting information out of his brother, and suddenly Cas wants to follow Dean's footsteps even knowing it would annoy his mate. "So. You and Dean. How's that going?"

This is a dangerous question. All questions here are dangerous. Ellen bumps open the door into the bar with her shoulder, carrying large canisters of nuts and pretzels, and Castiel uses helping as an excuse to slide off of his stool and get away.

xXx

They slip out before the evening crowd begins at the Roadhouse, after Dean assures the Harvelles that Sam plans to get his own questions in to them as well during the Discovery portion, and they'll have their chance to be heard if needs be. Sam will be back within a week or so, tied up in California, but cautions them to be careful in the meantime. The subpoenas for Dean and Castiel's own testimony have already been filed, they'll be hearing from the opposition themselves soon.

Crowley doesn't want a trial. He wants everything documented, everything turned around. . . and then he wants them to make a _deal_. According to Sam, that's his speciality.

Dean frowns the entire drive back to Castiel's place, and Castiel watches the cars around them, deep in thought until Dean reaches out and turns off the radio, drawing his attention back. "Look, Cas. We're in this together, right?"

Castiel blinks, turning his eyes to Dean's profile and rumbling an affirmative, head canting questioningly.

"Okay. Good. Because I figure. . . any deal that asshole puts on the table, it all comes down to the fact that you can't take anything without basically admitting you were in the wrong. That'll fuck up your future, man. You'll be the guy that plea bargained out or paid off the assholes."

Sam seemed pretty sure he could get Dean out of this mess, use the pictures taken at the police department of his bruises, get it turned into self-defense . . . but for _Cas_, it's about five times more complex. Dean doesn't give a shit about the countersuit Sam filed against the assholes on_his_ part; that's just lawyering, that's just turning around a lawsuit. But he's pretty damned worried about both the civil suit and criminal charges against Castiel.

They stick together or Cas sinks.

"I understand." Castiel assures him, and Dean eases them into park outside of Castiel's place, and is taken by the arm before he can slip out of the car, pulled towards Castiel on the seat. Cas has wanted to kiss him all afternoon, and now, this genuine concern. . .

He doesn't want sex right now. Not particularly. They've just had three solid days of sex, what he craves now is the domesticity they were just finding towards the end of it. He wants to bring Dean upstairs and curl up on the couch with him and watch him watch his shows. He wants to try and scrape together some sort of dinner out of whatever's in Cas's apartment together, and finish that shopping trip tomorrow. He wants to hear more about Dean; not just his heartbreaking history, but tales about Sam and about Jo and Ellen, the stories behind the family he's watching interact around him.

When they get upstairs, what they find instead is a broken lock and a ransacked apartment.


	20. Chapter 20

There is a smear of blood across Jimmy Novak's picture, Castiel's thumb absently running over the broken glass of the silver frame clenched in his hand and leaving small cuts behind each motion. He hasn't noticed it yet. As level-headed as Castiel seems for the most part, right now there is a sense of very deliberate control, barely controlled fury written in every line of his frame even if it doesn't bleed through into his voice or responses to the police officer standing in the middle of his living room taking the report.

The entire apartment looks as if a localized tornado tore through the small space, upended furniture and ripped everything out of its rightful place. A crack runs through the television, a blade had been taken to the couch they'd curled up on the morning before leaving this space, and everything has found its way into piles on the floor, making it nearly impossible to determine what is missing.

The neighbor's statement is useless. He focuses on the fact that since Dean moved in with Castiel he's learned to 'ignore the racket,' and he sneers as he says it. He just assumed Castiel and Dean were having more loud, acrobatic, furniture moving sex. Castiel's expression is stony, jaw tensed and muscles corded in his neck, but when he turns to his neighbor and levels a stare at him, the guy takes two steps back and shuts up speculating about his neighbor's sex life to the cops. It's easy to forget that Castiel can be _scary_until you're the one having to meet his unblinking stare. Of course, the neighbor then manages to screw them over more: after all, he didn't know to suspect anything, he claims, when people have been going into and out of Castiel's apartment all the time since Dean came. There's a measure of truth to that, Lucifer's unsanctioned entrance, Jo letting herself in with the key once and breaking in the second time, Dean banging on the doors and peeking in windows . . .

The apartment manager has insurance come out to take pictures and tabulate the damage to the leased furniture, and she loudly announces damage to _their_ property while essentially wading carelessly through the broken glass and torn pages of everything Castiel owns. The first time Castiel visibly flinches when someone kicks aside the crayon-colored papers on the floor of his bedroom, Dean makes himself useful and gathers them up, weaving through apartment workers and the cop with Cas to rest them on the kitchen counter instead.

He feels like shit. He feels guilty as hell. And standing here watching Castiel take it on the chin again is making it worse every passing second.

It becomes quickly clear that Castiel is now entirely homeless, his 'activities' including the assault charges and Dean's inclusion in his life, everything coming down the pipeline to bring trouble into this apartment complex, are entirely unwelcome. Lifestyle choices. The phrase is flung around regularly, like Cas is a frikkin' drug dealer bringing a 'bad element' into their bullshit little utopia. The truth is, though, they mean _Dean_. Cas could have gone on living here like this forever until Dean pulled him neck deep into his shit.

Every new development winds the tension tighter, but when Dean touches a hand to his elbow and prepares to say something Cas shakes his head tersely, brushing off comfort before Dean can start. He _needs_ to be angry right now to get through this.

Dean gets that. Hell, he's pretty pissed off himself. More than that, though, he's standing in the ruins of Castiel's quiet, normal life and feeling pretty damned _responsible_for it. Cas has been flying under the radar for a long time, since he got out of the army and out of the clergy, and now he's in the middle of a whole new frying pan. The officer is telling Cas that this looks personal, like a grudge, and whether or not it was personal or related to the case, it's personal _now_. That shattered picture frames, the torn books and upended dresser drawers, they make it personal.

The police officer leaves them a report number, and it's only when he's going to leave that Dean recognizes the guy he dubbed "Officer Uncle" when they were arrested, working his normal beat and shift, the same one that put him in the right place and time to arrest the two of them days before. The cop tips his head slightly at Dean as the apartment manager descends upon Cas with eviction paperwork next, pulling him to the side and lowering his voice. "Keep an eye on him. It's not going to help your case any if he flies off the handle. Can't prove anything by it, but I'd bet that's part of the point. Things are getting pretty high profile by now; couple of the guys you roughed up, their families have been here forever. You two got someplace to stay?"

Dean frowns, leaning against the wall beside the gaping door. "My place, I guess."

The officer frowns and shakes his head slightly. "Winchesters' Auto, right, at the city limits?" At Dean's wary nod, the officer writes a note to himself. "I'm gonna get my buddy who's on that side of town to do a quick drive-by, make sure there are no obvious signs that they did this to the both of you."

"Place is a fortress, trust me. Have to be a pretty determined crook with power tools and a lot of time to burn." John Winchester, if nothing else, was damned good at building a defendable base. It wouldn't be . . . comfortable, however. Not merely in the furnishing, but in being back _home_again after all this time. The cop seems determined to check it out, though, clapping Dean on the shoulder and releasing him after a few quick questions back to Cas as the pinch-faced insurance guy and apartment manager leave.

This time when Dean approaches, Castiel looks to him with eyes dark as midnight and _angry_, but his voice is finally showing the strain of keeping his unbroken demeanor. "I'm to vacate the premises. They're sending the property security to keep an eye on us as I clear out. Regardless of the fact that 'property security' entirely failed to secure my property. I don't have anywhere. . ."

"You're moving in with me." Dean interrupts, firm and unyielding, annoyed that it was even a question in Cas's head. There's a split second after that where his gut twists, where he's afraid that's the last damn thing Castiel wants after Dean tore his world apart like this, but he finds himself annoyed at the look of surprise and gratitude he gets instead. Of course Castiel's welcome to move in. The fact that Dean all but moved in with him the second they met made questions of _where_ ludicrous. "C'mon, Cas. Let's get your stuff before the assholes come to stare at us more."

"Anything I leave they're going to sell to recoup the cost of the damages." Castiel sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes, and now that he doesn't have a hostile audience his shoulders are beginning to sloop again. His anger is still there, simmering, but undirected it's becoming grief instead. "I have renter's insurance, it should handle it overall, but. . . I don't have much that I need. Just a few things of sentimental value." Like the photograph, blood smeared across the glass, and when Castiel raises his hand and notices it he frowns and the reality of it all seems to hit him at once.

"Then lets get your stuff into the car, Cas. I can get the obvious stuff, you figure out what you can salvage?"

It's with a faint grimace, brow knitted and eyes flashing in pain and anger, that Castiel begins picking through the former contents of his bookshelf while Dean carries armloads of clothing from the bedroom floor down to the trunk of the Impala, dumping them there. It is sad how little of _Cas_ is actually in this place: leased furniture and professional books and attire. If Dean took the time to fold the clothes, he's pretty sure he could have gotten Cas entirely packed up in a couple duffle bags.

It's with a sense of foreboding that he notices that the photograph, letters and paperwork he replaced in Castiel's closet don't seem to be among the mess. He picks up a few last drawings and letters from Claire Novak, but everything else is gone. He frowns at the twisted bedding on the floor, kicking it aside to check beneath it one last time before going out to find Castiel crouching among books and broken glass, holding the ripped remains of a Bible.

The leather is weather-beaten and stained by handling, but recognizable from the photograph Dean spied before they left the apartment. This Bible went through a _war_ with Castiel, and its pages are now scattered across the apartment's carpet, deliberately ripped in half straight down the spine. Castiel's fingers rifle through the destroyed books around him, distracted from any other task as he attempts to hunt down the individual pages of the Bible and tuck them in his hands, a battered and destroyed symbol of his personal philosophy and faith. Standing surrounded by torn books, Castiel's stoic demeanor has finally slipped entirely. Fiction, nonfiction, medicine, history, science, literature, these books were his _friends_; symbols of classes taken, personal achievements met, quiet moments with his own thoughts and imagined worlds, the only things he had to get him through some of the darkest moments of his life, and he can't save any of them. But he can't lose this one. Dean's feet shuffle on the carpet as he joins him, and Castiel breaks out of his own thoughts to look up at Dean, a pitiful pile of scripture in his hands and an agonized expression on his face.

"Jimmy gave this to me as a gift when I was deployed." There is deep grief in his quiet explanation of this behavior that he knows must seem completely absurd. "Emmanuel's Rosary broke while we were over there, and they took the flask Gabriel gave me and the 'Holy Playing Cards' Bathlazar gifted me as a joke, but this Bible saved my life. Held it in my hands to demonstrate that I wasn't a combatant, to show who I was. And then I used it to try and keep their faith, and mine." Not that it worked. Four years. He knew priests who lived a lifetime devoted, believing, and he couldn't make it through four years of war. "Most of them were just _children_, Dean. Nineteen or twenty. On our side _and_ theirs. I was such an old man to them and I wasn't quite out of my twenties myself, looking for answers in the pages and I couldn't. . ." He couldn't wait on God to deliver them any longer. He can't finish the thought. With a shuddering sigh, he looks down at these paper corpses at his feet and eventually gathers the broken photos and his few military mementos and carefully lays them with his torn bible into his pile 'to keep' on the kitchen counter.

Dean joins him where he stands with hands braced on the kitchen counter to support his weight, head bowed as he stares at the torn pages. As Dean rests a hand to Cas's shoulder, offering silent support, Castiel nods to the ripped cover, turned up to an inscriptions hand-written there by his brother years before.

_"Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able_

_to stand against the wiles of the Devil."_

_– Ephesians 6:11_

_God Is Your Shield, brother, and I know He will see you home from this._

_Try to stay safe and make it a little easier on Him, though?_

_We're all proud of you, Castiel._

_– Jimmy_

"A play on the meaning of my name. I was the priest, but I think in many ways Jimmy had so much more faith than I ever did." Castiel shakes his head, quietly mournful, and drags a hand down his jaw and the dark stubble he hasn't dealt with since quitting at the hospital. Dean wants to touch him, wants to wrap an arm around him and hug him, but he doesn't know if it would be welcome, doesn't know if Cas is ready to accept comfort. "I don't care about most of these things, Dean. They're just. . . _things_. Possessions with little meaning. But _this,_I cared about."

"The uh. . . the papers in your closet. I knocked them down when I got your uniform pants out. They're gone now." Dean tells him abruptly as if ripping off a bandage, another blow to Castiel's few personal possessions, and it draws a thoughtful frown from the doctor.

"Further evidence that this was not simply the undirected revenge work of the men at the hospital. Tell Sam as much. This is related, I'm certain. . . I haven't become involved in anything else recently that would. . ."

"I'm sorry, Cas … " Dean interrupts, and Castiel blinks and raises his head as he realizes where Dean was taking that comment. He was taking it as blame, as a sign that Castiel should have stayed well out of his life. Turning to lean against the counter beside him now, shaking his head tersely, Castiel's shoulder leaned against Dean's as if they are bolstering each other upright, though he's not prepared for an embrace or emotional outpouring. He is keeping it together. He _has_ to keep it together.

"No. I am not putting this on you, Dean. You are not responsible. Assuming guilt in this is unnecessary weight on your shoulders. The best thing that we can do is ensure the trial ends with those men in prison. This is . . ." He blows a controlled breath out, and the anger is still there, the pain, but the control is more solid now. Dean's starting to get it: Castiel isn't dangerous because he could lose control, as the officer believed. He_chooses_ when to throw down, and that is perhaps more frightening overall.

Blue eyes sweeping over the destruction of this space that has been his home and safe haven since coming to Lawrence, Castiel pushes off of the counter and stares at his few mementos. He is homeless. Jobless. Quickly becoming penniless. Besieged by criminal charges. But perhaps not_entirely_ faithless. As bad as things are, the torn Bible was a reminder that they have been _worse_. That they have been worse in his life. He trusts Dean and he believes they can pull through this, that Dean's stubborn determination to win this for Castiel will see them through. Once he would have been able to make a sermon from this, craft it into something else, and perhaps there is still . . .

The paper is so worn that it is nearly translucent with its ink fading from handling, but he selects the page carefully and folds it neatly before placing it in Dean's hands, cupping his palms over Dean's fingers and meeting his confused expression with a sudden look of conviction and determination. This is something that they can avenge only by not letting it drag them off course, either with the case or with each other, and Castiel's faith in God may have been damaged, and his faith in mankind may have suffered, but he can still believe in some things. "This is something we are going to win, Dean."

And with that, he deliberately turns his back on the last tether he had to Kansas, memories of his life before that gathered in his hands, and he leaves Dean staring at his back in bewilderment.

Sometimes he gets a glimpse of aspects of Cas that he's never going to get a handle on, and this. . .? This ranks right up there with coming to Dean's rescue in the first place or drinking in churches for inscrutable actions. Dean glances at the page in his hand, this ripped piece of Castiel's most precious possession chosen for him, and commits the words to memory before folding it again and tucking it into his pocket, unsure what else to do with it.

_Do not lurk like a thief near the house of the just; do not plunder his resting place. For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity._

He frowns at the mess around them, gives up on fully trying to understand Castiel's motivations, and then follows in the former priest's footsteps down to the Impala.

Damn right they're going to win this.

xXx

Fast-food burgers and John Winchester's battered kitchen table. A match made in Heaven, or at very least so long ago in Dean's memory that it just seems damned fitting that the first meal he'll have in this place is grease burgers and beer. If he's going to be home again, it might as well feel as much like home as it ever did.

"We need to figure out from Sam how long this trial's going to take. I may need to start taking in business again, get some cars through the garage." Dean remarks idly as he cracks open a beer and passes it to Castiel, looking down at his baby parked in the garage below, all the doors drawn down and locked up again. They're actually doing this, living together in this crappy place, and that means they're going to need food on the table and ways to replace the shit broken at Cas's, and cash for gas. There's no way in hell Dean's becoming a bus rider too, and this far from city center it's practically a drive just to get to a bus stop.

"I can help?" Castiel offers, and then immediately grimaces as he realizes just how tentative that sounds. He has no car experience. He has no experience manning phones or setting appointments. He has never sold anything, or held anything but a white-collar professional career in his life, discounting the military where he was still first and foremost a priest. He wouldn't know where to begin. "As long as I am here living off of you, I would _like_ to help, somehow . . . I enjoy numbers. I could keep the books for you, do accounting?"

"Dude, no one _enjoys_ numbers." Dean snorts, and shifts so that his knee rests against Castiel's under the table as he sprawls in his chair, hand wrapped around his beer. Cas seems to be leaning towards him unconsciously anyway, still shaken by what happened at his apartment, and perhaps a little closer to admitting as much. "You don't have to 'earn your keep' or anything here, Cas. I started pretty much handling all the business to come through here when I was fifteen. My place is your place, you can just. . ."

"Dean, I _want_ to help. Please, let me." From the day as a teenager he decided he was dedicating his life to the God, he hasn't had a time period where he didn't have a _goal,_a mission of some sort: be it seminary or chaplain work or medical school or the hospital, he has always had_something_ to drive him and he needs that now. He needs to be useful. He needs a distraction. And he needs to be nearby, to watch over Dean if not for Dean's safety than for Castiel's own peace of mind.

Dean can't handle the silent plea in Castiel's eyes. Just his dumb fucking luck, he managed to end up with someone who could give Sam a run for his money in that department. "Yeah, okay Cas. You can help with the books when we start getting business. And uh. . . help me make this place livable while you're at it? If we gotta stay here, we might as well make it less of a hell hole before I figure out how I'm selling it."

Castiel leans back in his chair, the chair he'd kissed and petted and screwed Dean in less than a week ago, and offers Dean a strained smile. "I can do that."

It's not until later, until dinner has been consumed and cleaned up after that Dean decides to try and figure out what the hell they're doing. Since dinner was put away, Castiel finally sank into his side on the crappy mattress they spent the night on before, the rattle and hum of the air conditioner the only thing until then to break a silence that, if not exactly comfortable, was at least companionable in that both men realized they were in their own heads, wrapping their thoughts around the mess they're floundering in. Dean knows Castiel's apartment is bothering him more than he lets on, and strokes his hand up and down Cas's spine idly, and it _should_ be weird that the guy's curled up against him and they didn't even have sex first.

It's weird because it isn't weird. And that brings Dean to what's bothering him.

He clears his throat, finds the words, loses them, and Castiel raises his head from Dean's chest to fix a questioning look on him before noticing his expression. God, he _sucks_ at this. Sex, he's got. Short of apparently breaking down into tears or ending up in the wrong place and time in his head, he can handle that. He _sucks_ at this emotional crap, though, at relationship stuff. He's just not built right for it.

Castiel rolls onto his side, head propped on his fist, and leaves his other hand splayed over Dean's stomach, waiting for him to figure out what he wants to say, eyes tight and red-rimmed with today's new blows against them. It's that tightly reigned grief and worry that finally gives Dean his start. "Look, Cas. We just met, and. . ."

"'And' we learned more about each other in the first three days than most people would after months of 'dating.'" Castiel interjects, as if he has to defend them from conventional thinking. Dean glares at him until he falls silent, stops interrupting, and they've got to be pretty fucked up people because _that_ makes Castiel bite back one of his faint smiles and nod for Dean to continue.

". . . _and_, I get that we're moving fast. But I . . . look, Cas, you're not homeless or 'living off me,' okay? You've got a place as long as you want it." Dean closes his eyes, so he doesn't have to watch the flickers of expression chasing their way across Castiel's face and risk seeing something he doesn't like. "And I mean, after the trial even. It's not exactly paradise, but I know some people in Sioux Falls. The sheriff there's a friend of mine, and she's got to know a lot of people at the hospital there who might. . ."

Dean has never been happier to be interrupted than when Castiel kisses him to silence, love and gratitude and a million other feelings and emotions that Dean doesn't deserve left unspoken.


	21. Chapter 21

"Wow." Sam Winchester is standing flabbergasted in the middle of his childhood home, rubbing the back of his neck beneath his carefully tamed mane of hair and staring at scrubbed and organized countertops, a pantry stocked with food, and neatly folded throw blankets from Cas's old apartment on the back of the old couch disguising the frayed upholstery. John's remaining paperwork; journals and accounting ledgers and supply forms are stacked neatly on the cleared-off desk in the corner where Castiel has taken up looking at the numbers when Dean is working on cars below. Nobody is ever going to accuse Cas and Dean of being HGTV-ready, but the subtle changes are significant. "Um. So you got a cleaning service _and_ a roommate?"

"Turns out the whole 'cleanliness is next to Godliness' thing is really near and dear to Cas's pious, priestly heart. Or it is when he's nervous and stuck here anyway. I figured it wasn't hurting anyone so I let him go do his thing." Dean shrugs a little too casually, and though he's picking on the man there's a fondness to his voice and Sam has the distinct impression that Dean's enjoyed every bit of Castiel moving into the small apartment above the garage with him. They're not going to _stay_, but as long as they do, the fact that Cas is nesting is fairly endearing.

It's entirely Cas's doing, he just doesn't have the heart to reign him in. The guy's entire home was wrecked, Dean's not going to begrudge him a few throw blankets and pillows. And hell, Dean's had time on his hands waiting between the customers that Ellen and Jo have wrangled for him, so he doesn't exactly mind pitching in. That's his story and he's sticking to it no matter how skeptically amused a look his brother gives him.

Banging the side of his fist against the bathroom door, he raises his voice again and shrugs his suit jacket on. "C'mon, Cas, we haven't got all friggin' day! You stay in there and I'm making you ride with Sam in that clown car he got."

"The rental isn't a clown car, Dean. Just because I didn't use Cas's money to spring for a boat like the Impala. . ."

"Call my baby a boat one more time, Sammy. . ." Dean dares him, distracted when Castiel finally opens the bathroom door and he forgets the rest of his threat. It's been almost two weeks since Dean's seen Castiel without a scruffy beard, since the guy decided to take the homeless jobless thing to heart and not bother with shaving altogether. Dean swallows heavily, clears his throat, and reaches out to straighten Cas's collar over his tie. If Sam weren't here he'd be doing a lot different an activity. He'd thought that he had a thing for Cas scruffy and dressed down in a sleeveless undershirt and a pair of Dean's jeans or his old BDU pants in the summer heat, because it made him approachable and less frumpy. But Cas clean-shaved and dressed up in a suit and tie again _does_ things to him. So he inevitably cakes it in a heavy layer of sarcasm rather than admit that in front of his brother. "'Bout time you got out of there. I was about to send in a rescue team."

Sam once again seems entirely unsold on Dean's gruff demeanor. So, for that matter, does Cas. Tipping his head to the side (the right angle for a kiss, not that Dean's thinking about it), his pale lips twitch into that faint impression of a smile he tends towards, worried blue eyes lighting up for the moment as he watches Dean watch him. He draws that plush lower lip into his mouth briefly under Dean's scrutiny, and dammit he does that on purpose.

Dean's not _that_ obvious, they can both stop looking at him like that.

"Shut up," he grumbles at the completely silent pair before dropping his hands from Castiel's collar and grabbing his keys from the coffee table. As he walks by the kitchen table he grabs one of their breakfast biscuits from the table, the bottom scraped off entirely because Cas did the honors this morning and so only the top half is edible. Practice isn't turning Cas into a chef by any means, but the fact that even part of it isn't a charcoal briquette is progress. "Parking at the courthouse is a bitch, Sammy. We're all taking my car. I'm driving, you're telling us what to expect. You two fight it out for who rides shotgun." Dean's uncomfortable like it would mean announcing favorites between the two of them, and he doesn't even want to open that can of worms in his own head.

He loves his brother. And Cas means a lot to him. More than he should by now. When it's Sam that clambers into the shotgun seat beside him, he lets out a quietly relieved breath and then crams most of the biscuit into his mouth so he doesn't have to discuss anything as he gets them out of the garage and on the road. Cas's reflection dips his head slightly in the rearview with a look of understanding, and settles comfortably into the back seat. Dean could kiss him, but he has a mouth full of biscuit and his hands on the wheel, and that would mean admitting that Castiel's intuitive response wasn't off the mark.

Dean is his mate, but Sam is Dean's everything. Castiel didn't try to crowd Sam out at the police department after they were released and he doesn't intend to try now, either. Dean sees his brother less than he should. Castiel, meanwhile, intends to be beside Dean for the rest of their lives. There is no territorial competition between the Alphas.

"Alright. Today's the formal arraignment hearing. We kind of jumped the gun on part of this by getting bail posted the night you were arrested, thanks to Ellen getting the judge on the line for us, but today's where you meet with the judge and put in your plea, Cas." Sam's settled into the nickname himself, now, and Dean smiles faintly to hear it. "Meanwhile . . . they're going to have the prosecutor for the criminal case in the room with us. My job, today, is to convince him and the judge that there's enough doubt and evidence of self-defense that there's no sense prosecuting you for the criminal assault charges, Dean. If I can do that, after today you're in the clear except as the key witness in both Cas's criminal and his civil case, and in the trials against the guys that jumped you. That's still going to feel like you're on trial too, but without the potential jail time tagged on."

"No chance getting Cas off today, too?" Sam smirks, his snarky little bitch-smirk that betrays where he took that comment coming from Dean, and Dean scowls and takes the opportunity to put them back in their places so they stop it. He's not going to be the only one flustered if they keep this crap up. "Yeah, yeah. Keep right on smirking, Sammy, and I'll make sure you regret crashing with us. You've heard Cas 'get off' before already anyway, right. . .?"

Castiel can still blush. In the short time they've been together he's loosened up to the point of folding Dean like origami and pounding him into the mattress just last night, and Dean likes to joke that he's taken the virgin former priest and turned him into a budding nymphomaniac. But the second you _talk_ about sex while he has his clothes on, he flushes scarlet. As far as Dean's concerned, its frikkin' hilarious. At least Cas doesn't try to deny that if Dean decides he wants to get frisky, he's inevitably on board. Sam, meanwhile, hides his eyes behind his hand, mortified by the reminder of the mid-sex phone call and desperate to get on topic. Much better. "If I can get him to accept self-defense for you, it's _possible_ I can get the judge and prosecutor to agree that there's enough evidence that a jury'd agree he's covered by the Samaritan laws. That would still leave the criminal and civil suit against the other guys, and the civil case against you, Cas. Which is where it's going to get nasty."

"Because of _their_ lawyer." Castiel surmises, and Sam nods slowly.

"Pretty much. He's going to be there today too. This'll be my first run-in with him in person, but I've already had to file a couple of documents to keep him from you two until I got here. I don't like where he took the depositions from Jo and Ellen, and I _really_ don't like what he's been subpoenaing for." Sam isn't looking at Dean, eyes fixed out the passenger window, and Dean can read between the lines.

"So it's like that?"

"Yeah, it's like that." Sam confirms grimly, jaw clenching. Dean nods and rolls his shoulders, forcing himself to relax his grip on the wheel, preparing for a fight. If this Crowley guy wants to play rough, Dean's not going to back down.

Time to face the skeletons in his closet.

xXx

Victor Henriksen sizes Sam up within moments and offers his hand professionally, though he's clearly holding back on commentary in front of the courthouse, and he does it while he's still a step-up on the staircase above Sam in an obvious power-play gesture. Goatee neatly trimmed, black suit starched and pressed over his broad shoulders, he's not exactly the traditional Lawrence, Kansas prosecutor. Then again, nothing about this is entirely typical of Lawrence.

Some asshole called the _press_.

Sure, it's not exactly a flood of reporters, but Dean kisses goodbye his chances of passing as an Alpha under even the most half-assed scrutiny when a camera catches him climbing the courthouse steps with Sam and Cas and a bottle blonde from the nightly news tries to shove a microphone at him. Local news has to get its stories somewhere and they're more interesting than some grandma winning a local art competition, but even local news ends up on the internet now.

He can't think about that right now. He can't consider the long-term ramifications. "Don't flirt with the cameras." Is his brother's very first counsel of the journey before he has to go address the reporter himself, and Dean reigns in the urge to wink at the camera and the blonde just because he's a sarcastic shit and that's his best defense when he's surprised. What's he supposed to do, glare at everything like a creepy serial killer, like Cas? "Okay, if I'm not supposed to act like a tease, you're not allowed to look like a psychopath."

"What exactly am I _supposed_ to do, then, Dean?" Castiel asks, hands clenched into fists at his sides, and Dean smirks at him and shrugs. Damned if he knows. "Act natural?"

"This _is_ natural." Castiel huffs.

"Okay, act like someone_else_ acting natural." Dean winks at him covertly, and it's heartening when Castiel's posture loosens slightly, his eyes on Dean instead of the cameras, warmer and softer. Steadying Cas helps keep Dean calm, and they make it inside without major incident. They're two steps into the courthouse when the grandstanding begins.

Crowley has a driver who cruises up to the courthouse steps and lets him out, where he greets the reporter with open arms and a salesman's smile, calling her darling. Any question of who called the local media is quickly answered, and as they set the camera up and dangle a boom mic over him, he turns and looks back at the courthouse, meets Dean's eyes through the glass as they wait by the metal detectors for the short line of attorneys and clients to move through, and _winks_.

"Son of a bitch." Dean turns to Sam, jerking his thumb at the display and meeting his brother's eyes. "Tell me that's not the guy."

"Pretty sure that's the guy." Sam's digging his cell phone out of his pocket, dropping it and his briefcase into one of the plastic buckets to pass through inspection. "Why, you know him?"

Dean pays attention to the line long enough to drop his wallet and keys into one of the stupid plastic tubs with Castiel's, and jerks his head back towards the doors as his brother stands facing him with his arms out as the security guy boredly waves a sensor wand over his arms and body. "That guy got the room across from ours in the hotel."

Sam stares at him for a long moment until the security guy prods him onwards to keep the line moving, and then swears under his breath quietly, grabs his phone, and dials as Cas is checked by the metal detectors next. "Charlie. Send me every video you can get of Crowley, and an uncut version of tonight's local news reel before it hits. Text me when you got it, we're at the courthouse now, the arraignment's in thirty."

He has studying to do tonight.

xXx

It's strange, seeing Sam in a courthouse with his briefcase in hand, hazel eyes narrowed and shoulders square, navigating a legal minefield with papers as weapon and shield. Somehow, Dean's mind still wants to see him as thirteen years old and sitting cross-legged on Dean's mattress on the floor of the bedroom, admitting how terrified he was of starting high-school. Not because of the classes, but because he was a year younger and a shrimp even for his age, trying to get tips on coming across as a badass from the big brother who didn't know how to break it to the kid that everything since dropping out was a lie, carefully constructed bravado and bullshit.

If Sam's still just following his lead, Dean can't tell. Maybe his advice sunk in farther for Sam, took root and spread and made him legitimately brave. Dean's still mostly just bullshit and bravado, but now it is Cas that he's giving tips to. Cas, whose issue isn't necessarily bravery.

"Chill, Cas." Dean murmurs as he sits on the uncomfortable bench lining the courthouse corridor, watching Sam file paperwork with a clerk, bent with his elbows across his knees. Cas is bolt upright beside him, knotted with tension, watching Crowley saunter in through the front doors like he owns the place, clearly finished with his interview now. "Sam's got this. _We've_got this. You'll be fine."

"He is compromising your safety, Dean." Castiel growls under his breath, and his fingers unconsciously knot and twist into the fabric of his slacks over his thighs. Dean rolls his eyes and takes Cas's wrist in hand, sitting straight and dragging Cas's hand back with him so the guy doesn't rumple himself up too much before they ever see the judge.

"Cas, the world's never going to be 'safe.' If I was worried about safety, I'd have found some rich jackass to keep me, put me up somewhere and keep me fed, watered, knocked up and locked up . . ." Castiel's fingers lace through Dean's in the space between them on the bench, tight until it's just shy of painful. Someone _really_ doesn't like the idea of Dean being the kept Omega.

In a way, it's heartening. Not because Cas is jealous of this hypothetical other Alpha, but because the idea twists his lips in disdain as if he can't imagine Dean living that way. Since they fell into each other's lives, there hasn't really _been_much outside of each other. Family messes, sure, and the court case and all the accompanying crap, but every day since his Heat some niggling sense of worry has resided in Dean's subconscious. It worsens every time Cas's hand lands on his stomach possessively as he curls around him like birth control pills be damned, Dean's an Omega and he should have been knocked up by their three day sexathon while he was in Heat.

It's probably entirely coincidental, or just more of the instinctive Alpha crap that he hates; he hasn't made an issue of it because otherwise he _likes_how unwaveringly affectionate Castiel becomes after sex. Dean's just still waiting for everything to fall apart, because when something seems too good to be true it usually _isn't true._He keeps waiting for being Castiel's 'boyfriend' to take a turn towards the familiar, to it being just a different kind of captivity.

Instead, he has Cas sitting in a courthouse looking at potential jail time himself, because he's trying to be a decent human being.

"C'mon." Dean tugs on Cas's hand, drawing him to his feet, and then two-beat whistles to get Sam's attention. The silent conversation between the brothers takes one head motion, a responding bitchface, a shrug and pointed glance at the obviously nervous Cas, and then Sam rolling his eyes in annoyed surrender and pointing at his watch, then holding five fingers up. Castiel seems baffled by the entire display, but doesn't object when Dean drags him off to the public bathroom.

Five minutes. He can work with five minutes.

There are times when having a slight edge on Cas for weight and height is awesome. Sure, in a straight hand-to-hand fight he knows from Cas's history that he might not have the upper hand, but being able to pin the Alpha to the door the moment they're through it is awesome. Dipping his head down to kiss Cas is becoming one of his favorite pastimes. He revels in that momentary hitch where he can feel Castiel melt into it, pouring all of his love and affection into the gentle slide of his lips, the flick of his tongue against Dean's.

Dean's pretty sure Castiel has ruined kissing for him with anyone else; maybe more than just the kissing, or the sex. Maybe Dean himself is in general ruined for anyone else, his urges and responses slowly and gently molded and reshaped to the point where he can't imagine being with anyone else. There are times that's _terrifying_. . . but not with this. _This_ is a him and Cas thing, now, his hand splayed over Cas's hip to keep him in place, his other hand cupped to the back of Castiel's head among the flyaway hair. There's no urgency here, and even if taking the Alpha into a bathroom stall for a quickie was the least bit logical, he wouldn't be trying to.

This isn't sexual. This is comfort. This is affection and intimacy. This is, whether Dean can admit it to himself or not, love. Castiel strokes a hand along his cheek, leaning back against the door mindless of if anyone else is trying to get in, and lets Dean coax him into relaxing, into remembering what exactly he had gained that day by putting two men in the hospital, ease him into putting aside the urge to once again hurt the people responsible for hurting Dean and making his already difficult life worse. "Is this a kiss for luck. . .?" Cas murmurs into the dip below Dean's lower lip, and he lets himself be distracted tracing it with the tip of his tongue when the shape of it changes with Dean's practiced smirk.

"Sure, we'll go with that." Castiel loves how Dean's voice changes in intimate moments, and he smiles into the kiss, tugging Dean closer and then latching an arm around Dean's waist, smoothly turning them in place to put Dean between him and solid surface of the wooden door. It's stupid, and Dean knows it's stupid considering his own history, but every time they do this, every time Castiel decides to dedicate himself to reminding Dean of how significant just _kissing_ can be, he gets a little more jealous of all of the meaningless kisses with nameless people Cas wasted to get this good at it.

That's how he knows when this falls apart it's going to fuck him up.

Sam's voice and irritated knock breaks them apart. Resting his forehead against Dean's for a moment, Castiel sighs quietly in regret and presses one last brief kiss to Dean's lips, and then his brow in silent thanks, before slowly easing back to let Dean move away from the door and Sam to crowd in on them.

"You two ready, now? We're up in five."

xXx

The judge's chambers behind the courtroom proper carries the wood tones of the courtroom in, and then swallows it in organized chaos. Judge Rufus Turner rattles through the legal jargon with a sense of irritation at the entire routine, informing them of their legal rights, informing them of the processes, and then accepting their not-guilty pleas with a complete lack of surprise.

It's not until the formalities are over that the older man leans back in his leather executive chair, worn in places from use and more comfortable for it, folds his arms, and glares at them all from the head of the conference table. "Doctor Novak, Mr. Winchester. I need a minute with the lawyers. Just stay right there, I'll get back to you when I'm through with them."

Somehow, he makes it seem like a threat.

Steepling knobby-knuckled fingers at his chin, he turns his scowl on the three lawyers positioned around him. "I have brought all three of you in here today to make a few points very clear. Mr. Henriksen is here because our District Attorney has his head so far up his ass that he thought I'd overlook it and would let him pretend to prosecute a nephew. I do not miss details. I am not stupid. Neither he, nor you idiots, is going to pull the wool over my eyes."

"I don't care where you come from. You are in Lawrence now, and you are in_my_ courtroom. I am not impressed by you. I do not care that you went to Stanford. . ." His eyes fall on Sam. "Or Harvard." To Henriksen. "Or Oxford." Crowley. "My law degree could be printed on _toilet paper_, and it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. While you are in my courthouse I am your _God_ and you will treat me with respect."

"Mr. Henriksen, do not expect favoritism because you are black: we are not a fraternity, I do not know you, and I do not_want_ to know you. Mr. Winchester, the fact that I knew your Daddy and your 'Uncle' means jack squat here. I would have thrown _their_ asses in jail, too, if I had half a chance. Mr. Crowley, the next time you bring the press to my courthouse you are going to be the front page with the bailiff kicking your scrawny British ass down the stairs. There are no favorites here. You're all on equal footing which is to say you are _all_ starting out on my shit list already. Are we clear?"

The 'Yes, your Honor' responses are ignored in favor of turning a piercing stare on Castiel and Dean next, and Dean keeps himself very still in his chair, the military posture his father trained into him holding. "The same goes for you two. Do not test me. Not here, and not out in that courtroom. My job is to keep all of you in line and keep this bullshit you've dropped into my house from becoming a circus. None of you involved in this are going to get any preferential treatment from me. I am not your enemy, but I am sure as _hell_ not your friend. Is everyone clear on exactly how very happy I would be to toss any one of you for contempt of court?"

Yeah, it's safe to say they are all very well aware of whom holds the power in their situation right now. Judge Turner glares at Crowley until he tucks his smirk away, glowers at Henriksen until he nods once precisely, and then at Sam until he gives another deferential 'yes, your honor.'

"Good. Then let's get this show on the goddamn road."


	22. Chapter 22

Sometimes, Dean doesn't think things through.

Oh, he can plan; Dean's actually pretty good at figuring things out. He's as much a problem-fixer as he is a mechanic. But there are times when he doesn't think out repercussions, and every time he tries to fix anything that isn't moving parts and machinery there seems to be some catch that comes back to bite him in the ass.

This is one of those times.

Victor Henriksen isn't a bad guy, that much is clear. The former New York native is brusque and maybe a little abrasive, but that's his job as a criminal prosecutor. His role in life is to shake people down, to get them to break on the stand, and to put away violent criminals.

Right now, as far as Henriksen is concerned, Dean and Cas are criminals. As they've segued past the unnecessary arraignment and into the pre-trial hearing, he's taken up his role neatly, attempting to force out of them any information that would necessitate the jury trial. As photographs from the police station hit the table, images of spreading bruises that have only recently faded completely, he's composed as he answers Henriksen's accusations. Dean expected them. He's ready to fight, he was ready to fight when he walked in the door.

Dean wasn't ready for _Sam._

Dean is just dense enough (in his opinion) not to have put together that by bringing Sam into this, by making him their attorney, he's going to have to look Sam in those huge sympathetic puppy dog eyes as they pry into every damn thing he has desperately attempted to shelter his little brother from their entire lives. . . and this is just the first basic question from his defense attorney.

Intellectually, Dean knows what he's supposed to say and do here: after all the facts of the assault itself have been laid on the table, he's supposed to make Henriksen and Judge Turner believe him, make them understand it, have them dump all of the criminal charges against him.

"Were you in fear for your life? Did you believe you were in danger?"

It's the textbook wording, the difference between self-defense and assault, even a grade-school level understanding of law tells him that, but it drags everything out into the open, unlocks the vaults in his head and lays all his shit out in front of three strangers, his boyfriend, and his baby brother. He can see the folder in Sam's hand, the date fifteen years ago neatly printed on a label and it's been there in that stack for the last hour as he was grilled, waiting for them to reach this point in the discussion.

The room is stifling, and he can feel the weight of everyone's stares on him. Castiel's hand is on his knee beneath the table, but now it feels as if he's being restrained to the chair rather than comforted while he's in it, and it takes a few slow, controlled breaths of air before he can raise his chin and fix his eyes on a point past Sam's shoulder, his voice harsh and biting.

"I didn't 'believe' crap. I knew I was in danger. I knew exactly what those assholes were capable of, because they'd done it before not even a week after my first Heat. The guy pinning me was reaching for his belt when Cas showed up, and grinding up against my ass. So was I in fear for my life? Sure. Because I would have made those assholes kill me this time rather than go through that again."

"Objection." Crowley's voice is bored in the face of Dean's hoarse and vehement admission, and he raises two fingers from his temple without looking up from the paperwork in front of him.

"Mr. Crowley, we are not in the courtroom and this is not the trial." Judge Turner sounds irritated, dismissive, dark eyes flashing towards the British attorney because he should know court procedure better than that, he does know court procedure better than that. "You will save your objections for when it is your clients being questioned. You are here as a courtesy and I am not all that damned courteous, so you would be better off keeping your mouth shut."

"I am here as a courtesy. As is Doctor Novak, as this line of inquiry does not directly pertain to his case." Crowley's head raises, eyes fixed on the judge, lips just barely quirked into a smirk and his rough accent rolling derisively over every word. "As it stands, both of us have cases directly hanging on the testimony of Mr. Winchester and. . . ah. . . Mr. Winchester-the-taller. . ." He dips his head to Sam mockingly ". . . is aware of the fact, which is why he has not requested that I be sent out, as that would be the height of hypocrisy."

It's Sam who replies, and Dean's little brother has spent too long learning his control tactics from Dean because his voice drops in displeasure: Dean just admitted he'd have rather died than be made into a victim again, and Crowley's tactics are disrupting his control as Sam deals with that fact. "Your Honor, if necessary I can handle my clients' hearings separately in order to ensure that Mr. Crowley isn't able to badger and antagonize them during the pretrial."

"I don't give a shit what you two decide as long as you're not wasting_my_ time listening to you argue about who gets to argue." Judge Turner points a finger at Crowley, and jerks his thumb at the door. "Get out. I'll hear your 'objections' at your own trial. Mr. Winchester, your clients. . ."

Sam nods, turning his attention back to Cas and Dean. "Cas. . ." Raking his hand through his hair and rumpling the carefully controlled mane, for the first time showing any nerves in the face of having to drag his own brother through this, Sam lowers his voice for their hearing alone. "I can't have that asshole in here, and I hate to say it but this might be easier for Dean without youhere right now, too. We're about to go into details of the first assault. This is our best chance of getting these guys to drop the criminal charges against Dean, which makes it that much easier to tackle the charges against you."

He can't have Crowley in there compromising it, and he can't force Crowley out while keeping Cas in the room. Castiel is frowning as if the idea of leaving Dean to face these questions alone is personally offensive, but Dean lays his hand over Castiel's on his leg and he weaves their fingers together, squeezing lightly. His voice rasps in his whisper: he's reassuring himself as much as he is Castiel. "Cas. . . you're gonna find all of this out either way when it shows up in their trial. I got this."

Castiel was a soldier, or near enough. He knows when he's been dismissed. If they weren't in a room full of spectators, he would have brought Dean's hand up and nuzzled his work-battered knuckles, kissed him again for luck and comfort, wrapped around him and tried to protect him from this. . . but perhaps that's precisely the problem: Dean doesn't want sympathy. He'd rather confront these issues than confess them.

Crowley saunters out of the room, apparently entirely unaffected by being made to leave, and something about his momentary look of triumph leaves Sam uneasy. Castiel rises to his feet reluctantly, and offers a nod to the judge and the prosecutor with a hand on Dean's shoulder that lingers until he turns on his heel to leave. Sam catches him by the wrist, glancing at the door Crowley slipped through. "Don't talk to anyone about the case. When we're done in here, I'll come get you for your hearing. Don't wander off, and keep your phone on vibrate so I can find you if you have to step away, the judge isn't going to want to wait."

Castiel nods his understanding and takes one last look at Dean. Chin dipped low, obviously concentrating on making sure he'll get through this for Castiel's sake as much as his own, Dean looks pale and faintly ill with his jaw clenched and eyes narrowed, breathing slowly to steady himself. Castiel cannot take this burden from him, however much he wishes he could.

Crowley is waiting outside of the courtroom when Castiel enters the narrow corridor between it and the main hall, and it is too deliberate to be coincidence: Crowley intended for them both to be thrown out, to have his first opportunity to contact Castiel given Sam's adept interference. "Not looking too good is he, your boy? And this is just the hearing." There's not even a veneer of false sympathy to the lawyer's words, barbed and sardonic. Castiel scowls, averts his eyes, and stalks towards the door back to the main corridor, determined not to be baited.

"Imagine how much worse it will be when I crucify him in the trial. The overgrown bleeding-heart little brother will probably get him out of the criminal charges today, but he knows I've already filed the paperwork to call his brother's pimp to the stand." Castiel freezes in place, fists clenched, fingertips driving into his palms until he can feel the bite of his nails, and even without turning he can hear Crowley's sneer as it colors his words. "I expect it will be even more difficult for Mr. Winchester when he's up there telling a jury and a courtroom of people about how eager to please your 'mate' was."

"That is _not_ going to happen." Castiel's words are punched out of him, his denial heated and furious, though he's refusing to turn towards the antagonizing attorney. Crowley snorts, pretentious cane tapping against the tile floor as he moves. "Ah but it is. And the jury will love it. So_tawdry_ a story. The pious virgin priest, sap of a doctor led astray by the Omega prostitute. . .?"

"Dean is _not. . ."_Castiel snarls, whirling to face Crowley, but the lawyer smirks in the face of his rage. He knows he has Castiel's complete attention now—he probably also knows how close to violent retaliation Cas is. It's only the fact that Crowley would bury him legally if he lashed out that has Castiel restrained, and even knowing that he is having difficulty not playing into Crowley's hands.

"Bought and paid for, kitten. Sex for services. Your help against my clients, and he spends that night with you, if your neighbor's generously paid testimony is to be believed. He was arrested at your apartment, both of you reeking of sex and half dressed. And then charges for the expensive hotel room, the meals. A hotel full of witnesses who would testify as to your very _vocal_ activities. And then all it takes is establishing his past history with a few select witnesses, financials, and careful questions to him on the stand. A whore is a whore is a whore is a whore. And I can prove it. Or. . ." He smirks, pushing the door open behind him, stepping backwards out into the main thoroughfare of the courthouse. ". . . You can settle. Is your father's money, a slap on the wrist punishment and your pride worth more to you than _Dean?"_

Crowley's little nod is blatantly mocking, knob handle of the cane to his temple in a smart-assed salute as the door swings shut behind him. "Contact me when you're ready to make a deal, Castiel." His accent plays over Castiel's name, drawing out the syllables tauntingly. "But don't wait too long."

Then he's gone, Castiel left staring at the door swinging in its frame behind him, furious and apprehensive.

The entire confrontation takes less than a two minutes. Yet it will haunt Castiel for some time to come.

xXx

He sees Dean's shoes, first, shined and clearly worn less frequently than Castiel's scuffed Oxfords, brought only for the funeral, dark against the tile floor. Dean settles heavily at Castiel's side on the bench seat, breath leaving him in a whumph as he seats himself, and they're once again where they started, though it's Cas taking Dean's hand this time as he raises his gaze from the floor before him.

"They've started the lawyer talk. My part's done, so I got out of there."

There's nothing physically different about Dean's appearance. His tie is still straight and clothes are still pressed and his jaw still set, but there's a tightness around his eyes, a thin set to his lips and defensive cant of his chin and shoulders that makes him look as if he's gone ten rounds in the ring and taken a beating doing it.

Dean was just forced to relive a fifteen-year-old crime for the benefit of an audience including his brother, his privacy and pride stripped away. Castiel feels the blade of self-recrimination twist in his gut when he realizes that Crowley has a point: in trial, this will be far worse for Dean. To an extent he realizes exactly what Crowley is doing: the man isn't _subtle_, but he isn't trying to be. His words slipped neatly between the instinctive need to protect his _mate_ from other Alphas, and the genuine love and affection Castiel feels for _Dean_. Everything to happen from here on out, every testimony and word transcribed within the courtroom will be considered public record, Dean's pain and trauma out there for anyone to pry into. Castiel would give anything not to have Dean do this and Crowley knows it, too.

"Think I'm in the clear. As far as criminal charges go, at least." Dean leans back against the wall behind them, head tilted back, handsome and stubborn and broken, speaking evenly but not looking Castiel in the eye right now as he gathers himself. "Henriksen went from treating me like a perp he needed to shake down to a witness he's going to need against the other guys.

Dean may not be a lawyer, but he reads people and has spent a lifetime picking up on people's reactions to him, their actual thoughts, so he knows how deeply he has to hide himself, how thick to layer the lie. In another life with an equal shot, he would have probably made a good cop with how well he's learned to read people. Henriksen was treating him like a victim_,_ and he frikkin' hated it, but he's good enough to read it just as he's good enough to read Cas even in his practiced physician stoicism: sympathetic but careful, controlled, his palm clammy in Dean's own between them on the seat. Lowering his chin, he narrows his eyes at Cas in concern, frowning. "What happened to _you?_"

Castiel swallows heavily, attempting to form his thoughts and fears into words, acutely aware of Dean's intelligent eyes fixed on him. That is, of course, precisely when Sam shows up.

"We're done here for now." The younger Winchester's briefcase thumps down onto the bench on the other side of Cas from Dean, and Castiel closes his eyes and lets the barely gathered thoughts and words drain away. Dean frowns at him for a beat longer, before his attention shifts to his brother too. "You're set, Dean. Your part's been declared as self-defense, and the charges dismissed. You've been named as a witness for the prosecution in the other trial, and obviously as a witness for Cas's defense. Cas . . . "

"The charges against me stand." Castiel surmises, leaning forward to rest his elbows across his knees, fingers pressing to his temples as his eyes slide closed. "I assumed they would. Did they give you an idea of why?"

Sam nods, and takes a seat beside Dean on the bench, leaning forward to look at them both. "Good Samaritan is determined by intent and motive, not evidence. They're leaving that to a jury; Turner only wants to give evidentiary rulings during pre-trial. I still think we can turn this around, though. Since Henriksen is on loan, Judge Turner wants this all taken care of quickly, so we're on the docket for Monday. It's going to be a few pretty long days for us, though. And there's. . . a few things we need to hammer out before any of that, about our methods."

There's something Sam's not saying, and Dean looks at him expectantly, the big-brother look that tells him to spit out whatever he's hiding. Castiel, though, doesn't give him the chance to pry it out of Sam. "Then we should be on our way."

Cas barely wants to confront the fact that in just a few days' time, Dean will be dragged onto the stand in Castiel's trial as well as his assailants, and then again in the civil trial. He needs time and space to process it, to consider the merits of Crowley's proposed deal.

Watching as Dean takes the lead out of the courthouse, already muttering about needing a drink or a few, he knows that his priority is no more his own safety now than it was years ago: he cared for the soldiers under his spiritual charge, and was willing to suffer anything for the slight chance of helping them.

Can he do any less for the man he loves?

xXx

". . . Need you here . . . Yeah, 'your majesty,' I'm serious. . ." There's a faintly exasperated fondness to Sam's hushed voice as he paces on the gravel drive outside of the garage, his suit jacket long gone and sleeves rolled up, tie missing and hair caught in the putrid smelling breeze off of the river. "It's time to finally come out of the dungeon."

"Book yourself a flight, I'll pick you up at the airport. Text me your itinerary, and make sure you pack something court-appropriate this time? I'm going to need you here before Monday so you can get a feel for . . . Yes, I _am_ dragging you into the courtroom with me, that's the point. You'll understand when you get here. Just. . ." Sam tilts his head back, looking up at the grime-coated exteriors of the windows, and from his perch on the back bumper of the Impala, Castiel can see him push his hand through his hair, tangling in the long strands to hold it out of his face. ". . . Book a hotel room first for the duration of the trial. Book me one, too, while you're at it. Yeah. Hitting those videos you sent next, so I'll be online."

Their goodbyes are brief, and when Sam turns around to find Castiel staring at him from only a pace away, head cocked, he sounds exactly like his older brother for a moment in his surprise.

"Son of a. . .!" The familiar expletive is cut short, and Sam takes a step back and shakes his head. "You can't just go around sneaking up on people like that. It's. . ."

"Creepy. So I've heard." Castiel's interruption falls flat even in comparison to his usual droll comments, and he can't find it in himself to make small talk. "Crowley told me he is calling Alastair as a witness to undermine Dean's testimony."

It sounds more like an accusation than anything, reproachful and abrupt, calling into question why this hadn't been mentioned to them at any point in the day. Sam grimaces, pained, and glances back at the closed door up to the apartment above. "He's asleep. He won't say it, but at the moment he would prefer space after what was discussed today. He also drank the majority of that bottle of whiskey between dinner and falling unconscious. Is Crowley going to put Alastair on the stand?"

"He's going to try to tear Dean apart on the stand, and Alastair is part of his plan for it too." Sam admits, sighing heavily. "I doubt he's going to find him, though. I've been looking for him for five years, Cas. I. . . I'm pretty sure no one's going to find him."

Castiel's eyes narrow into a critical squint, hands loose at his sides but posture tense and expression forbidding. Sam is keeping secrets, and that is an uncomfortable thing to contemplate from the man responsible for helping keep them out of prison, a man now holding Castiel's future in his hands. "Look, Cas. After I had a name, once I saw how messed up Dean was, I became a little obsessed. I . . . uh. I guess that runs in our family. After his lawyer had the charges dismissed, he would crop up places every once in a while, but never for long. I kept an eye out, I had a decent amount of research and then it was gone. Then he was gone. Cas, I'm pretty sure Alastair is_dead."_

He's never asked, though, never pursued it fully . . . because as far as he is concerned, Alastair _deserved_ that fate.

And because Sam knows that the man with the most motive and opportunity, who would never reveal the truth of it, is asleep upstairs.


	23. Chapter 23

Three hours and twenty-five minutes.

Three hours and twenty-five minutes after drinking himself to unconsciousness, Dean startles awake; breathing raggedly, the sheets twisted around his legs and his hand looking for a knife he hasn't kept under his pillow since he met Cas. It's not unusual, this moment of blind panic and defensiveness upon waking from his nightmares, but it's not common any more. It takes too long to drain away, for the knot in his gut to ease and the weight of Castiel against his back to be comforting, the arm tossed negligently over his stomach to feel anchoring rather than confining, and for the slow buzz of Castiel's quiet snoring to be familiar.

His eyes feel like they're full of sand, his skin is clammy with cold sweat, and his boyfriend the living space heater is glued against his back as the window air condition unit rattles and hums trying to keep up. He feels disgusting, and only part of that is the perspiration, the Jack Daniels he can feel trying to bleed its way out of his pores. The illuminated numbers of the clock seem to float in the air, mocking him with the knowledge that he's gotten just enough sleep to _feel_ awake, even knowing he's going to be miserable later in the day because of it.

Pulling himself away from Cas without waking him at least a little rarely works; it's like Cas is waiting for him to bolt again, even now. Or like he's trying to be some kind of living alarm system. When he untangles their legs, Castiel's arm tightens around his midriff, fingers flexing as he presses them into the skin of Dean's stomach, and after being the scruffy bearded guy for long enough the drag of his chin and cheek against the nape of Dean's neck prickles now. In a better mood and state of mind, Dean would appreciate the slow shift of Castiel's muscles behind him, the cat-like rolling stretch that starts at his shoulders and travels down them, that fits their hips together tighter until it travels to the toes the Alpha curls as he rubs his feet against each other. Right now Dean just wants to get _away_. He hushes the grumbled, sleep-slurred protest behind him as he peels Cas's arm away from him.

"Need a shower, Cas. Go back to sleep."

Turning his head he can just barely make out the baleful look that Cas manages to awkwardly arrange his features into with as little work as possible, the single cracked open eye, lips pressed to a displeased line at this interruption to the sleeping arrangement he was perfectly content with until Dean decided to move. Guy's had even less sleep than Dean, though; he definitely crashed first of the three of them, so Dean rebuffs the equally incoherent offer to join him in the shower. "No sense in both of us being miserable. Sleep."

Cas grumbles, and every movement from him now makes him look as if his limbs weight a ton—he drops his heavy arm down as Dean finally wins free of it entirely, fingers clenching, and drags Dean's pillow to his chest, burying his face into it, his body curling protectively around a space the pillow doesn't sufficiently fill. But his eyes slide closed again, nose and jaw hidden by the cushion in his arms, and Dean takes it as a sign that he can escape now.

He runs the water as hot as he can stand it, scraping his skin clean with fragrant soap and rough hands, a towel shoved against the crack of the door to keep the sound of singing loose pipes and running water from bothering his giant little brother sprawled on the sofa bed in the living room. He doesn't let himself think; he stares at stained grout-lines instead, at rivulets of soapy water running along his skin, and then at the light of the bare bulbs that frame the bathroom mirror.

If he thinks, he's going to think about all this stupid trial shit. About the fact that he's off the hook and Cas is dangling on the line over a nasty-ass tank full of sharks, and he's not even the one that can reel him back in. He's just the jackass that stuck him in that situation in the first place. When the door opens, he hears the tell-tale squeak of the hinges and the hush of fabric on the tile as the towel is shoved back into place. Cas doesn't try to join him beneath the spray. Dean can see him in silhouette through the curtain as he approaches the formica countertop instead, moving slowly.

He doesn't need a frikkin' babysitter to take a shower. He doesn't want Cas awake, making him talk about the goddamn nightmares, he wants away from them. He wants to _sleep_, and failing that he just wants to be able to breathe without two overbearing Alphas flanking him like he's not able to take care of himself even in a tiny fucking apartment he's known his whole life. Slapping the water off, Dean pulls the curtain back to glare at Cas and blinks in surprise, the defensive words dying before he can voice them.

"You need to drink it before the headache." Castiel explains softly, setting a glass of juice and a small plate of slightly burnt toast with honey down on the countertop, a pill beside it on the chipped circle of ceramic. "Or it won't work as well."

It's his 'hangover cure' that Dean had teased him about on the first morning they woke up together, after Castiel's breakdown at the church; Cas didn't just remember, he dragged himself out of bed in the middle of the night and put it together for Dean. Cas's tired eyes are too sympathetic, and part of Dean wants to tell him that he doesn't need to be coddled, but mostly. . . shit, he's standing naked and dripping in the bathtub staring blankly at Cas, trying to figure out why the hell he puts up with this crap from Dean, looking for some answer that doesn't tie back to pheromones and 'mates' and bullshit biology that Dean hates.

Something's eating at Cas. Dean might not know what it is, but he's got a pretty good grasp already for Castiel's moods and expressions; whether it's the trial, or the reminder of the profession that this fiasco is costing him, or some new worry about Dean himself, Dean can tell he's got something on his mind. He knows the crease between Cas's brows, and the downward twist of his lips. But he also looks at Dean like a man in love and whatever the reason for it, chemicals or some kind of masochistic personality that keeps him here with a bitchy drunk broken Omega: Dean is torn between wanting to shake that besotted look out of his eyes or praying to Cas's God that he can live up to it.

As if he can't quite help himself in the small space, Cas reaches over and pushes the wet hair plastered to Dean's forehead away from his brow with a fingertip before taking half a step back. "I'm going back to sleep, I just wanted . . ."

Whatever he wanted, he's getting hauled bodily up against Dean, his knees hitting the top of the cheap plastic tub, and water trickling down his back from Dean's wet limbs wound around him. Some not insignificant part of Dean likes this; he likes catching Cas off-guard, surprising him. He likes that momentary hitch where Cas is completely off-balance, where he's not even kissing back yet because his mind hasn't caught up with the situation. When Dean is definitively the one in the lead. He likes being the one to make Cas melt into it, the reminder that he's the only one that ever has.

Cas is the Alpha, but maybe Dean's the possessive bastard of the two of them after all. His teeth nip at Cas's lower lip, his wet fingers tangle into Castiel's hair, dirtying the kiss, making it rougher, more demanding. Castiel surges into it, fingers pressing into his waist yanking him closer with a squeak of bare feet against the tub floor and another hollow thud of Castiel's legs against the side of the tub. It'd be just their fucking luck if they broke their necks making out between the slippery tub and tile, and Castiel seems to have the same thought at the sound and their precarious positions. Breaking their kiss, he rests his forehead against Dean's, eyes closed, and gusts a silent, self-mocking laugh at how very easily he lets himself be drawn in. His mind has been whirring with the implications of his earlier talk with Sam, but Dean's thumb absently stroking the hollow behind his ear, wet fingers massaged into his scalp, the humid dizzying air in bathroom and the heat of Dean against his lips, and he forgets it all.

"Drink your juice, Dean. Eat your toast. Take your medicine. I'm going back to bed." Sweeping his hand up the smooth line of Dean's back, arms wound around him, he drops a light kiss to Dean's lips, turning the hold into a brief embrace before forcing himself back again, locking eyes with his mate. "I would like it if you joined me; I don't want _either_ of us to be 'miserable' tomorrow."

Dean's lips twist wryly, and he reaches blindly for the towel hanging to the left without breaking his gaze away from Cas, and how it is that they fall into these staring contests he doesn't know. "I don't think I'm going to be able to get back to sleep, Cas, and you're wiped."

For a guy that can look so damned innocent at times, virginal and priestly, Cas can smolder pretty fucking well when he wants to, eyes dark and promising, that body heat Dean had been cursing only half an hour ago making his hands like a brand as they slowly drag along his wet skin; Dean's not sure how the water there hasn't burned away already, evaporated with the touch and the scorching path of his eyes they blatantly traverse Dean's naked body while Cas slowly steps back. "I am not _that_ tired."

Whatever his promises, by the time Dean towels his hair off, forces himself to eat the bread and drink down the juice, creeps into the kitchen to put it all away again without waking Sam, and makes it back into the bedroom, Castiel is Mister Comatose again. Snoring gently, one arm beneath Dean's pillow and his other hand reaches into the empty space on the mattress where Dean should be. Rolling his eyes, he slips into bed and carefully beneath that arm, unsurprised when it tightens around him and pulls him right back against Cas, nearly nose-to-nose as Castiel slots his knee between Dean's.

"Called it. Knew you were a fucking tease." Dean snorts, amused.

Cas mumbles something that might be an apology as he falls back into his octopus limb routine again, seeming to acquire several more and ensnare Dean with them, but it's comfortable and affectionate and Dean pets his hand down Cas's spine, soothing him back into a deeper sleep. "Just make it up to me later."

Despite himself, he lets himself be lulled back to a dreamless sleep by Castiel's even breath and warmth.

xXx

Dean never thought he'd be a morning person. Cas is pretty thoroughly changing that, though.

Dawn has just begun to creep into the room through the threadbare curtain that covers the top half of the window, fluttering in the artificial breeze off the window air conditioning, but Dean's definitely waking up: it could have something to do with the lazy open-mouthed kisses against the bend of his neck, the faint smile he can feel curl against his skin when he stretches beneath the good morning kisses and then immediately snatches Cas by the wrists and uses their tangled limbs to flip them, pinning Cas to the bed, cursing Cas's insistence that they wear pajamas even in bed while his brother's visiting.

(It's easier to think of it as a visit and to ignore the implications in the hour before they leave the bedroom).

Morning sex has been practically their hallmark since they fell into this together, and today is a damn good day for it. Slow, sleepy and intimate, Castiel worshiping Dean with lips and tongue and hands; it's the picture of domesticity and Dean doesn't quite care anymore once Cas is watching him through heavy-lidded eyes as they're tied together. It isn't about winding each other up, it's about relaxing, about ignoring the mess of the lives. Whatever had been plaguing him last night seems to have burned away in the light of day. They still didn't get quite enough sleep, but it's worth it once Castiel is sated and pleased with himself for coaxing a second orgasm out of Dean, hips rocking slowly as he nuzzles his chin into Dean's shoulder, his mate nearly draped over him like a blanket.

"Show off." Castiel chortles at the accusation and shrugs, indolent and lazy as sex ever makes him, the most relaxed he ever is, propped in the mess of their pillows, hands loose at his side until Dean rolls his hips teasingly, drawing another guttural groan from the Alpha and hands to his hips to keep him from teasing. "You told me to make it up to you."

"Figure you did that with the hangover thing." Dean braces his hands into the pillows beneath Cas and sits himself up again, testing the receding knot, ignoring Castiel's hissed complaint as he slips free and flops onto his back beside Cas on the pillows, their heads turned to look at each other, so close that Castiel can feel the words breathed across his skin. "But the sex is good too."

Dean is _beautiful_. Masculine jaw and body or not, 'handsome' isn't accurate enough to describe the dark sweep of his lashes, the curve of kiss-bruised lips, the spray of freckles across cheeks flushed with exertion and the elegant curve of his neck. Castiel has never been romantically attracted to anyone and now that Dean is part of his life, even after being introduced to sexuality, he can't imagine being with anyone else: he is utterly entranced by Dean. As he stares those lips curl into a smug smirk . . . Dean knows the effect he has on Castiel. How can he not? But he's drinking in Cas's expression, his broad palm running down the curve of his lover's jaw, thumb coming to rest in the dimple of his chin that seems to be made for that. "You're staring again."

"There is very little in this world that I wouldn't do for you, Dean." Castiel murmurs, too serious for the previous banter, and in the ensuing eye contact his expression changes slowly, his hand coming up to cup Dean's face in return. "And you can tell me anything."

The guarded look, the haunted look, creeps into Dean's eyes for just before a liar's smirk paints his face, breaking the moment and pushing out of bed to clean himself up. "Good. Then I have something to tell you. I'm starving. What you can 'do' for me is help me make breakfast. C'mon. Up and at 'em, Cas."

This isn't the time. Castiel's head hits the pillow again, his arm flung over his eyes, and he reminds himself to be patient. They have known each other so little a time, compared to the rest of their lives they'll have together.

He lets it go, and catches his pajamas when Dean tosses them to him, following on his lover's heels towards the kitchen.

xXx

"Damnit, Cas!" Dean is snickering his profanities when Sam finally joins them in the kitchen, frowning silently at the scene before him. Being back at the only home he ever really had in his childhood is far from conducive to a good night's sleep. When he was fourteen years old he outgrew the twin sized mattress and ended up taking over the sofa bed from Dean without realizing that his brother considered that a deal that let him have a door between himself and the rest of the place when he wanted alone-time with his magazines, and allowed him to escape the bar in the middle of his back. That crossbar is even more uncomfortable after years of getting used to thick mattresses and Jess tucked in against his side. Not having his mate nearby is throwing him off.

But it's the couple in front of him that ruined his sleep.

The final conversation he had last night was confessing that he genuinely believes that Dean murdered Alastair. Castiel hadn't responded, not really. When he slipped back into the garage and up the stairs, Sam had to worry if he'd just shot his brother's happiness to hell because he couldn't keep his mouth shut about family secrets. Five years he's held on to that one, and he spilled it to a guy who's been in his brother's life a month.

He waited up for the sounds of arguing, ready to intervene, laptop on his knee as he researched the opposition. . . and eventually he'd fallen asleep still waiting, woken briefly in the middle of the night and then at an obscene hour of the morning by proof that Cas. . . apparently didn't blink at what he'd learned.

He'd gone for a jog along the river. He didn't need concert-hall tickets for his brother's love life.

If Sam had found out Jess was a killer, even as much as he loves her, it would give him pause: he'd have to _know_, he'd have to hear it from her and it might completely screw up their relationship. If anything Castiel is more relaxed now than he was last night, and clearly well rested. Nose wrinkled in distaste, he's busy carefully trying to pick eggshells out of a pan without singeing his fingertips, though he pauses to flick yolk off of his fingers at Dean, the two of them too close to miss. "You jostled me, Dean. That doesn't count."

"Dude, I barely touched you and you friggin' _crushed_ an egg into the pan. I'm not eating crunchy eggs again, Cas." Dean pushes Castiel's arm out of the way and rescues the pan, tipping the half-congealed and shell-laden mess into the sink, and he's smirking as he teases. "Go make toast or something. Just try not to burn it this time."

"A shoulder-check does not qualify as 'barely touching me,'" Cas grumbles, splaying his hand along Dean's hip as he steps behind him and tilts to reach past him for the bread without moving from his spot, just for the excuse to touch him, chest to Dean's back, chin on his shoulder. This entire scene has an air of familiarity to it already, too many massacred meals for such a short span of time. Its clear Dean isn't trying to teach him so much as he is enjoying good-humored mocking of the Alpha, though Cas clearly bickers back, and all of it sounds more like _foreplay_ than actual arguing, which is a whole other insight into Dean's sex life that Sam could do without. "And if you hadn't gotten drunk I wouldn't have had to make toast in the middle of the night. In the dark, so as not to not wake your brother."

"Oh, you woke me." Sam doesn't want to be caught watching them, so he shuffles into the kitchen the rest of the way and leans against the refrigerator as he rubs a hand towel to the back of his neck to soak up sweat. "Last night and again this morning." Castiel freezes in place, caught half folded around Dean. He plunks his forehead against Dean's shoulder and sighs, flushing, immediately catching the implication of Sam's words. Dean, for his part, drops a teaspoon of butter into the pan and sets it on the stove to melt, flashing a quick grin at his brother that is entirely unlike his attitude yesterday.

"Morning, Sammy. Grab anything to drink you want other than the orange juice, pull up a chair, and remember that you're not allowed to bitch that I didn't put my sex life on hold just because yours has to be." Sam can see through Dean's cheer and teasing to his deliberate choice to change the mood from the melancholy of the day before, and from the way Cas tightens his grip on Dean for a moment, turning it into a momentary embrace and dropping a kiss against the nape of Dean's neck before moving on to toast bread, he can too.

Dean he gets. Cas, he has no idea what to make of his decision to sweep everything under the rug. For now, he shoves it aside for his brother's sake and he side-steps the topic of Dean's sex life, opening the refrigerator. "Why am I avoiding the orange juice, exactly?"

"Because Cas dosed it." Dean's matter of fact, cracking eggs into the pan adeptly.

"I didn't _dose_ it. There's nothing narcotic in the orange juice." Castiel corrects him quickly, as if worried that Sam is going to get the impression that he's putting crack into Kool-Aide next. Sam stares at him, one hand on the open door of the refrigerator and an eyebrow raised questioningly. "It's mostly over-the-counter." And, as if realizing this makes him sound no more sane. "For hangovers."

"Along with toast and honey, which is why the entire kitchen still smells like burned bread." Dean smirks, shrugging as he scrambles their breakfast with a fork, throwing in cheese. "It's chalky and has a funny aftertaste, and the whole bread and honey thing is weird but whatever, it works. Don't try to ask him why, he gets into this whole neurology and physiology thing until your eyes glaze over. Get yourself apple juice or start some damn coffee."

Castiel narrows his eyes at Dean, a low rumbled warning in his voice. "The fructose helps convert waste acetaldehyde, the byproduct of alcohol, into acetic acid and then metabolizes into carbon dioxide. Potassium and sodium in the bread aid in that process. That part is chemistry, not neurology. The vitamins and additives in the orange juice are where neurology comes into play, but we have a guest over and it would be inappropriate explaining it in the manner I would most like to. . . " Dean claps a hand over Cas's mouth, and then points at the toaster, winking.

"You're burning the bread again, 'genius.'"

Castiel curses softly as he fights with the antiquated toaster again to make it release the sliced bread, and Sam realizes he really, _really_doesn't want to know where that was going and why his brother's looking a little pink because of it. "Oh-_kay_. I think I'm just going to have another water. I've got to go pick up someone from the airport after breakfast; technically she's my assistant but she's. . . uh. She's different. You're going to like her. Then I'm going to sit down with Cas and we're going to talk bringing in character witnesses, because there's a few people I have in mind from what I've put together, who've already agreed and done video depositions."

Cas looks more then a little concerned about dragging anyone from the past he left behind into this. Dean is less than pleased at the reminder of the trial, and what it means for them all, but he squeezes Castiel's shoulder briefly in comfort before snatching the slice of toast out of his hands.

In short order he dumps a generous portion of scrambled eggs onto Sam's plate and takes the first piece of overdone toast from Cas, slapping it onto the plate as well and putting it in front of his brother as a silencing method. "Great. Okay. Let's save the legalese for this afternoon then. I want coffee before we start with the parade of friends and family, Sammy."

xXx

Sam doesn't get the chance to corner Castiel until he's tying on his shoes to go pick up Charlie. Dean scrubbing dishes clean in the kitchen and Castiel folding the sofa bed back away, the entire thing is so painfully domestic that it looks like they've been living together for years. He addresses the toe of his sneakers, but his words are lowered for Cas's ears alone.

"You didn't say anything to him. About what we talked about last night." It's not a question, and Castiel doesn't treat it as one, punching the pillows back into their proper shape and tossing them onto the couch. "I need to know if this is going to mess things up, Castiel. I need to. . ."

"Sam, stop." Castiel's breath leaves him like the air from a tire, explosive, damaging, and he raises his head to stare down the younger Winchester across the small room. "This changes _nothing_for me about Dean. I killed young two men after a mere six weeks of a captivity that I, personally, could have walked out of at any time. Your brother spent four months of intense physical and psychological abuse with that man as his tormentor. If he took matters into his own hands, it was _justice_." And God help him, if Alastair is still alive, _Castiel_ would not hesitate to murder him if he came near Dean again.

Castiel still inherently believes, regardless of whether he killed Alastair, that Dean is a _good man_. His own entire ability to slog through the day to day is built around the idea that while his religion does not condone such a thing, God at least forgives. Castiel also knows that however deeply he has tried to bury it in hospital work and charity and the priesthood, he himself is very accomplished at killing. He is incapable of the level of hypocrisy it would take to seek forgiveness for himself but not grant it to Dean. He worries more about this being something else left to fester, would like to hear the truth of it from Dean to try and halve that burden with his mate.

Dean could have murdered a man, and Castiel's primary concern is the effects that would have on his subconscious more than the legality or morality of the act.

It should be a red flag, a warning to keep his brother away. Even when it comes to the trial, Castiel has never claimed _innocence_, he claims extenuating circumstances—a justification for violence. Sam blinks in the face of Castiel's unwavering stare, trying to digest that piece of information, but his thoughts are interrupted by the final clatter of dishes being put away and then Dean's familiar defense.

"Geeze, I thought the creepy staring was a me thing. You two having a moment or something? Want me to clear out, give you the room? I hear the Alpha on Alpha thing is kind of. . ." Castiel sighs, dropping his chin to his chest and closing his eyes, and when he opens them he turns to Dean, whose arms are folded over his chest, suspicion etched into the lines of his face. He knows the only topic the two of them would have between them, and his words sound more like an accusation than a joke.

"No. Stay. We're through here. I need a shower." The kiss as he stops before Dean on his way out of the room is tender, brief, and one-sided, Dean's mouth an angry slant that refuses to yield beneath his lips for the first time, but he isn't offended by it.

"Yeah, you do that. I'll head with Sammy to the airport, pick you up on our way back through."

He wants the chance to drag out of his little brother what the hell is going on.


	24. Chapter 24

It's a measure of how much time he's spent with Dean in this garage over the past weeks that Castiel recognizes that the car pulling into the open bay downstairs isn't Dean and Sam returned. He knows the rumble of the Impala's engine too well to mistake it.

Which is not to say his time with Dean working in the garage has turned him into anything remotely like a mechanic. He still knows next to nothing about cars, considering he's been a pedestrian his entire adult life and has never had a car of his own that wasn't simply part of his family's collection.

But after careful study in the garage, he knows the shine of Dean's skin when he has to pull his t-shirt up to mop at a face covered in sweat and engine grease. He knows the songs Dean can't help but sing off-key as he works. He knows how his mate's brow creases as he diagnoses an automobile the way Castiel once did patients, and then how he can fall into an almost Zen state as he loses himself in fixing them. He knows the boyish smirk and roguish glint of Dean's eyes when he asks for a hand, the look that means whatever help Castiel is going to be coached into offering will be interrupted with deliberate body contact that will end with them both off task. He knows that means that somehow even at his corner desk squinting at John's paperwork and organizing the business's finances and records, he's distracted Dean the way Dean distracts him.

No, it's fairly safe to say when he's working down in the garage with Dean, he learns a great deal more about Dean Winchester than he does about vehicle maintenance and repair. But he can fill out an Auto Body form, and a Repair Work Order, and a Customer Information Sheet, and there are not enough customers coming through the garage for him to want to turn any away merely because Dean is gone. Dean will come back and give the estimate, but he can do _something_ to secure their income, to help in some small way to put groceries on the table through the trial.

Dean teases him, but Castiel flinches every time he ruins a meal; he knows just how tight finances are, keeping John Winchester's business open and electricity on and their own incidentals and meals. Some part of him that he desperately tries to silence, knowing how much it would bother Dean to hear it, dislikes that he can't provide for his mate right now. Castiel has never cared about money before; either he was rich and he had it, or he was poor and he owned nothing, or earning money and sending everything he could space back to care for his niece, but he's never shared his life like this with someone else. He's never had someone else to worry about.

So he hastens to shut John Winchester's incomplete financial records again as the car cuts off below, tucking between the pages the slip of paper he has been fixated on since he found it two days ago. He steps into Dean's work boots, too hurried to bother tying them, tugging a shirt on over the old camouflage uniform pants he favors in the garage. He _is_ going to secure and keep this customer. He _can_be personable. He _will_ be convincing enough to encourage this person to wait for Dean.

Castiel's first thought as he stops midway on the steps down to the garage from the apartment above is _yellow_.

There is no second thought. The man climbing out of the obnoxiously lemon-colored, obviously entirely functional car, manages to derail Castiel's train of thought entirely. He grins at Castiel's blank stare in obvious amusement, rocking on his heels and shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

"Hey, bro. Long time no see."

Gabriel's grin only grows as Castiel flounders in confusion.

xXx

Dean doesn't demand an explanation. He doesn't open up with an interrogation the second he's on the open road, and he doesn't ask about Sam's feelings or thoughts: Sam knows damn well that Dean's pissed, and Dean doesn't see the need to call Sam's attention to that fact with dramatics. It's not his style. Hands tight on the steering wheel, he scowls at the broken line of highway and sea of glowing red brake lights once they're past the toll and on the way to Kansas City International.

He's going to wait until he has the words that don't make it sound like he's just prissily shoving Sam away from a fledgling relationship like a whining brat, or until Sam just owns up to whatever the hell he and Cas are up to.

The radio is silent.

Dean is silent.

Sam can't handle that. Hell, he knows Dean, knows how he can stew in a temper for days without making it anyone's problem but his own; he'll bury himself in a car or a sink into a bottle. Oh, he'll respond to anything posed to him, but he's not going to be the one to start them actually talking. He could probably make it the whole way there and back in his own head, and leave Sam to twist because he's the one that talks feelings. He's the one that feels compelled to _talk_ about _any_ of their problems.

If Sam leaves this be, though, it's going to screw things up. Dean's trust issues will build up, wondering what the hell his little brother and his boyfriend are deciding _for_ him, _without_ him, and it will ruin that easy affection and camaraderie that Sam bore witness to in the kitchen between Cas and Dean. He figured out Cas was in love on his first trip here, and now he's gotten a glimpse of what it looks like when _Dean_ is in love. He never thought he'd see that, not after the hell Dean went through.

He wishes that he wasn't nervous now about that relationship. Because whether they're calling it what it is or not, even Sam can tell that Dean went and got himself mated to Castiel. He's tied his life and happiness inextricably to a man who comes across like a mild-mannered decent guy who just so happens to be about two bad days from murdering someone if he feels he's justified in it . . . and Sam's his _defense attorney_ and thinks that right now.

But at the heart of this entire mess is something else, something even more damaging, because the damage has already been done.

"Crowley's trying to get Alastair on the stand."

Dean's been half expecting Sam's voice for a while now with Sammy fidgeting in the passenger seat, but he wasn't expecting _that._His eyes snap to his brother, surprised, and after a moment the car hits the rumble strip on the shoulder of the road, tires whining of his inattentiveness until he corrects their bearings and fixes his eyes back on the highway.

"_Shit_." The invective is low and emphatic, punched out of the elder Winchester.

"Yeah." Dean's pale but stoic, and Sam doesn't know how to read him. If he murdered Alastair, he's playing it close to the vest, and he looks pretty damn shaken anyway. Sam frowns at his brother until Dean finds words again.

"How long were you planning to wait to tell me? Until he was in the room with me?" There's a growl to Dean's words, and Sam _knows_ that voice. He knows his brother well enough to pick up on the prickling of _fear_ coming off of Dean that makes the air in the car too thick to breathe, and the anger he's burying it under, visible in the flex of his jaw, in the corded muscles of his arms as he grips the wheel too tightly. "Just going to decide when I needed to fucking know things like that?"

_Dean_ _didn't kill Alastair._

So where _is_ he?

"Shit." Sam unconsciously echoes his brother's earlier sentiment, pressing the heels of his palms over his eyes, trying not to feel is brother's worried stare. "That's. . . that's not good."

He didn't even realize how much he had been _hoping_ that Dean had murdered Alastair, not just worrying about it, until after that hope was dashed. It's not that he wanted Dean to be a murderer. . . he just wanted to believe that the world was just that little bit safer for Dean.

"You fucking _think_, Sam? I don't want to be anywhere friggin' _near_ him. I don't know how. . ." He doesn't know how he'll react. He's in a cold sweat at the idea of it, at having to look at Alastair's dead eyes and sneer and face his complete conviction in his _ownership_ of Dean. That he'll have to square down against that broken fucked up part of himself that _believed_ it, that still believes it even now with the drugs long gone from his system. The broken Omega mess that Cas is struggling to heal with gentle hands, hoarse reassurances, a saint's patience and his willingness to let Dean set the parameters, to hold his own instincts at bay and let Dean take the lead sometimes.

He doesn't want the Alphas in a room together. He's waiting for the moment Cas realizes how fucked up he _really_ is, and opening up that entire part of his history will be hard enough if Crowley tries to do it with him on the stand, without the living, breathing proof of those four months mocking his relationship with Castiel from feet away.

The pheromones Dean puts off may never appeal to Sam the way they do to other Alphas, but he knows Dean better than anyone in the world and he's still programmed to receive. However even his breath, however focused he seems to be on driving, however much he leashes it and turns it into anger, into that straight-backed stubbornness that Dean has turned into an art-form, Sam _felt_ his brother's sudden, momentary spike of anxiety prickling across his skin uncomfortably.

He's not faking this. He couldn't if he wanted to.

Sam swears under his breath again, and drags his hands up over his brow, tangling them into his hair. "We need to talk, Dean."

xXx

Castiel half expects the slap to the back of his head that he gets a few minutes after settling beside his brother on the retaining wall overlooking the river, but he grimaces nonetheless, turning his head slightly to glower at Gabriel.

"Eight fucking years, Castiel. _Eight years."_

"You ran away first." Even to Castiel the answer sounds vaguely juvenile, and he holds a hand up to stop Gabriel's probably entirely deserved tirade at that sullen response. "You kept in better contact, I know. I'm. . . I don't have an excuse." He sighs, tipping his head back to stare up at the blue Kansas sky.

"Yeah, you do." Gabriel cuts him off. "You've got a damned _good_ excuse. And if you'd just been gone a few months after Jimmy. . ."

"I don't want to talk about him, Gabriel." Castiel rumbles forebodingly. If it were anyone but his brother, that warning and the edge of danger would be enough; Gabriel has never taken his family's shit, though, and he's not going to start now with his baby brother.

"Tough shit, kiddo, because we're going to. Because the med school thing, that I can understand after how things happened. We all did, and we left you alone. But you go across country to become a neurologist and end up in bumfuck Kansas instead . . ."

"I was trying to. . ."

Gabriel has never been particularly adept at letting other people finish their sentences. It's with a familiar exasperation that Castiel snaps his mouth shut again at Gabriel's interruption. "You were 'trying' to ditch your entire family because Jimmy dying hurt, and being around us was pretty much a daily reminder. When you know Manny. . ."

"He hates that nickname." Castiel sighs, aware that his brother will fold the second-hand objection on behalf of his twin into his words without pausing.

". . . has the same problem, _Cassie_." Castiel makes a face at the old moniker, and Gabriel smirks triumphantly at the expression, his point proved about how much he cares about preferred names after _eight years_ of barely any contact. "But he stuck around. We all got past it. All of us but you."

"Did you really?" Castiel's eyes slide towards his brother, lips tightened into a straight line, and his words are less a question than an quiet, level accusation. "You know it wasn't just that. How long has it been since _you_ have been in a room with Lucifer, Gabriel? How often do you visit Michael at 'home' when it's not a family holiday? I joined the chaplaincy years before Jimmy. . ." He still can't say it, and he can't face the naked empathy on his older brother's face—he looks back to the river rather than at Gabriel. They don't understand: it's that_pity_ he can't handle, what he fled from after the funeral. "You ran away to escape that house and their fighting. Once you were gone Balthazar moved to_England_. Emmanuel and Daphne went on missionary trips while I was overseas. Jimmy and Amelia moved to Pontiac. And I was deployed. _Half_ of us ran in some way, Gabriel, long before the funeral."

"Yeah, but_we_ actually kept in touch, Castiel." Gabriel rebukes him, tawny eyes sharp and clear and challenging. "There's a difference between moving on, or even getting away from the pricks, and a self-imposed exile. You're not the only black sheep in the fam, bro, and we rejects should have stuck together. I haven't seen your sullen squint-eyed frowning face in _eight years_."

Castiel smiles faintly to himself. His brother's idea of affection is a strange, sarcastic thing, but he's missed it in the twelve years since he first deployed, since the last time their little flock of the family's black sleep was whole and gathered together in celebration of Emmanuel and Daphne's marriage.

"You and your mail-forwarding box makes for a crappy pen pal, and you never answer your email unless you can make it about us and avoid talking about yourself. You tell more to _Claire_ in your letters than any of your brothers. I'm supposedly still down as your 'next of kin' on all your paperwork, and I didn't even know about _this_ until your lawyer's office called."

Castiel looks down at his hands resting on his knees, and sighs quietly. Of course; Gabriel's here for the trial. Just as he was after Castiel's dishonorable discharge. Just as he was on the day of Jimmy's death, driving him home from the hospital helping Balthazar deal with the inconsolable pair of twins in the back seat; Emmanuel crying silently and Castiel numb and blank and broken, twisting his removed clerical collar between his hands, bereft and faithless after losing his brother. Gabriel may be the brashest of his family, may not be the most responsible, but Castiel has never doubted that he _cares._Enough to hunt him down by the name listed alongside his on the criminal charges.

"We had to find out you had a friggin' _mate_from _Lucifer_, and you know what that douchebag's like when he knows something we don't."

He does. Castiel flashes an appropriately apologetic glance at his brother. "Huh. So that part _was_ true?" The speech, it seems, is over. Castiel is appropriately chastised in Gabriel's point of view, and his brother never did have the attention span for lectures or sermons. Mischief and curiosity look more natural on his pointed features, and Castiel resists the urge to edge away from the inherent danger that spells out for him.

"I am not going to like whatever you just schemed up." Castiel's words are slow and wary, and Gabriel winks, his grin almost wicked.

"Always said you were the smart one of us. You know, I haven't seen you since you stopped being a priest . . . "

xXx

"I didn't kill Alastair."

Dean's words are flat at the end of Sam's long confession, and Sam can't tell what's behind it, because Dean has successfully taken whatever he's feeling and shoved it down as deeply as he's capable. This could be hope that Alastair is really gone; it could be regret that he didn't pull the trigger himself; it could be anger that his brother has spent the last five years thinking him a murderer.

Sam has no clue.

For all that he's biologically _supposed_ to be an open book, for all that he sometimes is despite himself, Dean's poker face when he really sets his mind to it is one of the best Sam's ever seen. And Sam deals with criminals trying feed him a line and win his impassioned defense as his professional career. Emotionally lock-boxed or not, though, Sam _believes_ him.

He just wishes that made things better.

"Dean, I'm sorry. I thought. . ."

"I know what you thought, Sammy." Dean's shutting the line of discussion down as best he can; he may have been the one to trap Sam in the car to force him to spill, but he wasn't expecting _this_. He's piecing together every response from his brother in the past five years, trying to see what this has colored, because it's easier than the game of false hope and the gut-churning feeling of trying to think about Alastair. "Is that part of why kept Jess away from me, until the funeral?"

Of course it was.

He can hear the planes overhead, the steadily deepening whine of one coming in for landing, and he follows the line of cars towards the terminals, trying to wrap his head around how he feels about this. His brother's words, apologies and concerns, blur together for the time being, just like the buzz of text messages from Castiel; acknowledged but brushed aside until he can get a handle on this.

"Just. . . Go pick up your Gal Friday at the gate. I'm going to the cellphone waiting area so I don't have to pay out the nose for parking again. Call me when you're at the pickup zone."

Sam is giving him puppy dog eyes, and he's not ready to just put this aside as a big misunderstanding yet, no matter how much his brother knows how to play his sympathies. He needs a few minutes to get a lid on this, to get himself squared away to the point of being able to play nice and civil with Sam's assistant. Once Sam is out of the car and the Impala eased into a space in the lot, he rests his forehead against the steering wheel, eyes closed, breathing slowly.

Alastair is either dead and buried, or just. . . lurking. Dean has always figured he was just out there, a looming threat that follows him wherever he might be. He can't let himself hope until he knows more, because it'd screw him up royally if he strolled into the courtroom after everything and Dean _wasn't_ expecting it.

He's got to be able to face this, because if he screws this up, if he breaks on the stand because of it, Cas pays the price.

His phone buzzes again, a text reminder, and he fumbles it out of his pocket without raising his head, squinting at the small screen below him and its multiple messages from his boyfriend.

**Gabriel is here. Going out. I don't want to bring a guest in without you.**

**At the Roadhouse.**

**My brother and your family are trying to convince me to talk about our relationship.**

**I think they are planning to get me drunk.**

**We need a rescue text code.**

Despite himself, Dean scoffs wryly at the final message, straightening in his seat and responding at last to the string of texts.

**The Alpha's asking an Omega to save him. Cute.**

Castiel's response is slow to arrive, and it leaves Dean with visions of Jo and Ellen lining up shots for him, though he knows it's unlikely. He doesn't know what to expect from this Gabriel guy, but at least it isn't going like the _last_ reunion Castiel had with his family, if he's willingly out somewhere with him.

**Asking by boyfriend to recur me from his family**

Castiel is apparently an auto-correct victim already; either Gabriel showed up _right_ after they left and started feeding Cas booze immediately, or (much more likely) he's trying to type without the others noticing. Dean is fairly amused by the image of Castiel's entirely valid fear of the Harvelle women setting him to texting below the edge of the bar. The nauseated feeling his conversation with Sam left him with is slowly receding as his thumbs fly across the illuminated screen of his phone.

**And YOUR family. I'm still in KC. You're going to have to hold you own for at least an hour. And try not to get too drunk. It's not even lunch time you lush.**

He's considering a text message to Jo to tell her to play nice, when a sharp knock sounds on the trunk. He can see Sam at the back of the car, juggling two bags and gesturing at him, so he shoves the phone back into his pocket and slides out of the car to unlock the trunk.

"I'd have driven up, Sammy." Dean grumbles, because he figures the only excuse Sam had for walking over was to have more time talking to his assistant about him. The assistant who is apparently moving in, by the number of bags with her. Shouldering her laptop case, a petite redhead grins at him from behind Sam's back and speaks before the man who is, in name at least, her boss.

"He was being stubborn and decided to carry everything, like I didn't make it all by myself through the airport in San Francisco. It's kind of sweet. Y'know. . . _dumb_, but sweet I guess. Hi. I'm Charlie. You're Dean. He never lets me call him Sammy."

Somewhere in there might have been a pause for breath. Dean didn't hear it. He blinks at the unexpected rush of words, and it's clear at once that Charlie has heard about him. . . and is nervous. A nervous talker, offering a hand for him to shake. "Uh. . . yeah, that's me."

It clicks, what his sense are saying versus what he's seeing, right before he can return the gesture.

_Alpha._

Sam gives him a grade A, well-rehearsed, 'we may be fighting, but don't be a dick, Dean' bitchface without letting Charlie see it, like Dean would even think about it. Charlie's expressive face slips slightly at his momentary hesitation when he realizes her designation, and Dean uses that to pull his thoughts back together, conceal his surprise, and flashes her his winning smile, pushing aside the itch of recognition and shaking her offered hand. "And he never _lets_ anyone call him Sammy. I get away with it because I've got a lifetime of blackmail material on him."

It's not that he has a problem with female Alphas. . . hell, he'd be a hypocrite if he did. He's spent a long time flipping off society for telling him he's not what he's supposed to be; the obedient little sex-crazed fuck-toy of the world. Alpha Females, they try to pretend don't _exist;_he's not sure if erasure is any better than objectification.

Neither of them _fit_ in the stupid idealized world. Omegas are perfect subservient Stepford women they're shown as in the movies, and Alphas are the strapping macho men they all wish they were, and Betas are 'normal.' The only way they fit is if he's ass-up strapped to a table in a farm, and she's leather-clad and starring in a fetish flick.

After a moment, Charlie's smile settles into something a little more natural, self-amused and aware of her own social awkwardness on meeting new people, but she remains animated and friendly. "Sorry. I don't get out much. This is the first time he's dragged me out of my dungeon for a case and, y'know. The boss's brother. No pressure! So, I brought the dungeon with me. Hence your brother being a pack mule."

"Yeah, well, he's good at mulishness." Sam shoots a glare without any heat behind it as he closes the trunk over the luggage, and Dean smugly grins back at him, a point earned. They're not okay, yet. Dean knows it. Sam knows it. But they've been putting aside family drama in public for a long, long time. Charlie insists Sam takes the front seat, so Dean adjusts the rearview so he can see her as he eases them back into traffic.

"So, if you're usually doing this from the office, why're you down in the trenches this time? Can't just be because it's me."

Sam and Charlie exchange a look; the kind of look that says he's on to something there, but not something they necessarily want to divulge right away. Sam takes point on the question—probably means he can get the _real_ answer out of Charlie later. "Charlie's my tech and research guru; I'm the lawyer but she's really the brains behind our operation. We're dealing with two unknown attorneys here and three court cases. Plus, you may be off the hook for the jail time, but I need to look at it as two different clients, too. She's going to be my stand-in when I need her. She's good, Dean. She knows her stuff."

"He's Obi-Wan, out in the field doing the Knight thing, but I'm Yoda." Charlie confirms, and Sam rolls his eyes but doesn't argue the analogy. "One-woman Jedi Council. I may not get out much, but I kick ass when I do. Or. . . I guess I do. I'll try to."

"That was reassuring right up until that last part." Dean drawls easily. "Do, or do not. There is no try."

Charlie's grin blossoms, a traveler in a foreign land who finds someone speaking her language. Sam groans and tips back his head to stare at the headliner of the car. "I don't know which one of you to tell not to encourage the other."

"Too late, boss. Now it's going to be a constant test of which references the other gets, and you're stuck with it. Them's the breaks, Winchester." Charlie's complete lack of reverence for his little brother, no matter their relative positions, for some reason soothes away an unacknowledged worry. Sam brought a _friend_, he didn't just tag in a lackey from his firm like they were _that_sunk without professional backup.

As she falls into chatter about jury candidate questionnaires and response matrixes, passing slightly battered manila folders up to Sam to study while they're on the road so he'll be ready after lunch for the jury selection, Dean reminds himself that they're going to win this.

xXx

Castiel's eyes snap to the door just as Dean's opening it, as if he's managed to tune himself to the Omega so closely that he can sense his mate coming. It would be a little unsettling if it weren't for the fact that he can't quite help relaxing in his seat when Dean acknowledges him with a wink on his way through the Roadhouse, cat-calling Jo teasingly and ducking Ellen's swat as he steals a beer from behind the bar, by all signs in a pleasant mood.

Castiel has his doubts. The Dean he sees in public and the Dean he knows in private often times don't match. Either way Castiel feels better already for having him here, ambling in his bow-legged fashion towards them, fully aware of Castiel's eyes on him as he moves.

"Sam and his assistant?"

"Dropped them off, and Sam took the rental. They're setting up at the hotel and then heading over to the courthouse to pick out the jury." He offers his hand in front of Castiel, extending it to Gabriel to shake. "Dean Winchester. You must be Gabriel. He hasn't told me crap about you, but from how he's been texting me I was expecting you to have a funnel between his teeth pouring booze into him."

The way Dean straddles the mismatched bar stool beside him like he's mounting a horse makes Castiel swallow heavily and wash that vision down with a too-long pull from his drink. He's still mostly sober, that's just _distracting_. Dean settles in beside him and drops an arm possessively around Cas's shoulders, and that's when Castiel realizes he has no idea what he was saying to Gabriel before Dean walked in. When he turns back, his brother is smirking at him with the most insufferably knowing look he has ever faced. Even Ellen looks highly entertained.

Gabriel whistles, low and long. "You're _hopeless_, Castiel. Seriously, it's a little pathetic." Dean bristles slightly at his side, but Castiel rests a hand on his thigh to reassure him that this is just. . . _Gabriel._"So, I hear I have you to thank for my brother finally losing his V-Card."

Burying his face against his hand, Castiel pushes the mug of beer slowly back across the bar to an obviously eavesdropping Jo.

"I think I am going to need something stronger."

He doesn't get much stronger of a drink than that, in the end: as Dean had mentioned, it _is_ early, and despite being out of practice he's relatively certain he can withstand _one_ of his brothers teasing, even if it is Gabriel.

Gabriel twirls his keys around his finger repeatedly on his way out of the door of the bar as Castiel escorts him to his car; he's got a hotel room to check into and phone calls to make, now that he's confirmed that Castiel is alive, well, and not (upon first glance) being taken in by a psychotic Omega prostitute, as Castiel is nearly certain Lucifer had claimed. He knows his family well enough to know that the word of that accusation had spread to Gabriel, prompted him to travel across country to check on Castiel's wellbeing for himself.

It's why he had chosen to bring Gabriel to the Roadhouse specifically, to introduce Gabriel to Dean's family before he met Dean himself. To give him a sense of the man his brother had fallen in love with as a human being, not a creature of Lucifer's accusations and the courthouse drama that would be unfolding within days. He even deliberately chose to subject himself to the teasing and questions from both his family and his mate's, because it feels like _family_, and that rapport is not something that would hold with Lucifer's version of events.

He missed Gabriel. He misses Emmanuel, and Balthazar, and even Inias and Uriel at times. He will always miss Jimmy. He _doesn't_ miss the subtle machinations that formed the undercurrent of most every interaction with his family, however. That doesn't mean he's forgotten how to stay afloat among them.

As Gabriel's car pulls away, Dean joins him outside of the bar, shoulder to shoulder where Castiel leans back against the clapboard façade far from the door with his eyes closed, lost in thought.

"You good?"

Castiel shrugs, the motion moving Dean with him, close as they are. "Yes. It was. . . surprising. But not unwelcome." Opening his eyes, he looks out across the parking lot for a long moment, giving Dean the same courtesy of not staring at him for his own question. "Are you?"

He knows that Sam and Dean spoke. He doesn't know what came of it. There's a moment where he can _tell_ that Dean is prepared to lie. To say he's fine. He's not certain how he knows, but he does. But he knows when that urge passes, as Dean breathes out once raggedly, his shoulders slumping as he does.

"I didn't kill him, Cas."

He should be relieved. Sam was relieved. Instead, Castiel turns his head without moving away from the wall, blue eyes unguarded. "I'm sorry, Dean. I had hoped. . ." As warped as it sounds to admit it, he had hoped Dean had killed Alastair. Hoped he'd gotten that closure, even if just for himself. The law has let Dean down twice already; by allowing the rapists they will be facing in the courtroom come Monday to walk free in the first place, and by releasing Alastair.

Shaking his head slightly, Castiel glances at the closed door of the bar behind Dean, and pushes away from the wall.

These aren't discussions they should be having in public. He waits until they're in the car, the keys in the ignition and the Impala's familiar, comforting rumbling engine purring around them, before he finishes his thought.

"Crowley offered me a deal."


	25. Chapter 25

"So how long _were _you planning on not fucking telling me, Cas?" At any other time, Dean would feel bad for slamming the door of the Impala, as if he were taking his temper out on an actual baby rather than the sturdy steel of his beloved car, but not today.

He can't deal with more secrets today. And now it's both of them. Sam. Cas. The two people who're supposed to be in this with him, who are supposedly in his corner in this stupid fiasco, who insisted they didn't mind being dragged into his messes, and now he finds out they're _both_ keeping crap from him. Not just little things, either.

'You may be face to face with the guy who left you fucked up in the head' secrets.

'I'm conspiring behind your back with the enemy because I don't think you can hack it' secrets.

He's left pissed and floundering and feeling belittled and betrayed.

Cas isn't helping, either. Whether or not he intends to, he's acting like an Alpha asshole, like it's somehow his responsibility to shelter Dean from the world. Like Dean can't do it himself. He's ignoring the fact that Dean's been taking care of himself his entire life, and yeah things have gotten pretty screwed up in the past, and yeah the few times that he _wasn't_ able to protect himself were traumatic as hell, but he didn't ask for a_ bodyguard_ when he took Cas for his boyfriend.

There's just a complete disconnect in Castiel's head about why that's a problem for Dean.

He keeps his own voice lowered to contrast Dean's volume, but he is just as guttural, just as defensive. Resting his elbows atop the car, Castiel squints at him over it, the Impala a shield between them now that they've stopped. "I am telling you _now_. I think it's something that we should consider. . ."

"You mean that _you_ should consider, right? Obviously you've already been _considering_ it, Cas, or you'd have fucking told me." There's no way in hell he's getting any work done on the beat up Ford taking space in his garage right now, or talking to anyone else who comes up. Not after this. He wrenches the garage door down and locks it in place, anything to keep him from having to look at Cas right now. It's easier to be angry than disappointed. "You'd go to fucking _jail_, Cas. You get that, don't you? What part of that deal seems like a smart fucking plan?"

"You don't have to throw profanity at me, Dean." It's so absurdly fussy a response that Dean barks a laugh, bitter and rough, and Castiel bristles visibly at being mocked. "I would pay a settlement for the civil suit, and it wouldn't be my money. If I did any time in jail for the criminal case it would be minimal at best. It's assault, not murder. I'm an educated Alpha male from an influential family, and I did it for moral reasons. If I just listened to the potential offerings of the deal, I could negotiate. . ."

"_Jail_, Cas!"

Somehow, it's not nearly as amusing when Castiel gives the eye-roll when Dean isn't aiming for that response, his head rolling back as he stares up at the ceiling above them, his aggravated sigh echoing in the garage.

"I've already screwed up your job, Cas, do you really think I fucking want that? You'd never be a doctor again. . . "

"It's _already_ unlikely that I will ever be a doctor again, Dean. And it is _still_ possible that I will go to jail. And I can _accept_ that, whether or not you can, because I believe I did the right thing to protect you. I told you that Crowley made it clear that his intention is to attack _you_, to discredit _you, _and to . . ."

"Why the hell should that matter? Do me a favor and don't do me any more fucking favors, Cas! We already figured that his plan was to go after me for. . ." Goddamnit he doesn't want to _talk_ about this. "And after you for the thing in the army. The _only_ fucking thing that has changed is that he's trying to get witnesses for it. We're supposed to be fighting this, Cas. I don't give a shit if he walks into the courtroom a hundred of the assholes who forked over cash to get into that room with me . . ." Castiel's jaw flexes visibly as he grinds his teeth, and sensing weakness Dean stalks closer; if he can break through this façade of control, he can get to the truth underneath, he can make Cas _see_ this. ". . . and has them describe fucking me and knotting me in graphic detail right down to how I begged some of them for it. I don't care! So why the fuck should _you _care enough to change the goddamn plan?"

"Because you _do_care, Dean!" Castiel's final thread of control has snapped, his voice raised to match Dean's as he crowds into the Omega's space, blue eyes blazing, hands bunched into fists at his sides, and somehow even with Dean taller than him he manages to loom. "And I 'should _care_,' because I am in _love_with you and because I _know_you. Forcing you to relive that on the stand, in front of strangers and on the record, is one of the worst things I can imagine for you. You should not be made to suffer again for an _audience_, when this is not your _fault_. I don't want you near them, near _him_, because you _escaped_ that, Dean."

It takes ten seconds of ringing silence between them for Castiel to realize that there is no argument coming from Dean. For him to recognize the stare leveled on him as surprise and play back his words to himself.

Ten seconds for him to realize that the first time he declared his love outright, without dancing around the sentiment, it wasn't words whispered into his lover's skin or a stammered romantic moment between them: it was mid-argument, at the top of his voice, crowded into Dean's space and yelling back at him.

Dean knew already, Castiel knows that Dean understood the depth of his affection, but the_words_ have meaning.

It's Castiel's turn to curse now, quietly, emphatically, his face crumpling as he turns on his heel and marches to the stairs, his boots heavy as he trudges up them and into the apartment above, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his palm.

Stupid. That was stupid. He's angry and mortified, frustrated and just exhausted from fighting.

He makes it three steps into the apartment before the door slams shut in the frame behind him, before he is spun in place by a grip on his arm, before Dean is yanking him towards the couch and kissing him aggressively.

It takes a second for his mind to translate this as not being violence, after their fight, and to let Dean redirect their anger.

It doesn't take that long for him to push back, hands knotting into the thin fabric of Dean's t-shirt, bunching there as he shoves Dean down towards the cushions, fingers catching the back of Dean's knee and yanking him off-balance as he does, forcing him to land on his back and riding him down, Dean's boot-heel pressing into the small of his back to keep him close, to grind them together through their clothes.

Fingers press into Dean's ribs, into his skin, shoving his t-shirt up and out of the way, too impatient to bother pulling it off of him entirely as Castiel latches onto Dean's nipple, worrying it between his teeth and laving it with his tongue as he struggles with Dean's zipper one-handed, his progress hampered by Dean's hands between them, somehow expertly managing his fly and shoving down the front of his pants.

"C'mon, Cas." Dean's voice is almost mocking, definitely challenging, the ire of their earlier fight still apparent as he goads the Alpha, a litany of filth and encouragement, dirty and rough.

He tries so hard, all the time, to let Dean take the lead. But Dean wants this, his lower lip caught between his teeth to stifle his own groan when his fingers find skin, his body undulating beneath Castiel as he jacks Cas's length roughly. Castiel snatches his mate's hands away, fingers tight around his wrists as he pins them above Dean on the couch, and for once, for just this once, he isn't going to hold back.

Lifting his head he fixes a warning glare at Dean, pressing his trapped wrists into the cushion firmly, out of the way of Castiel's progress. "Keep them there."

Castiel barely recognizes his own voice, hard and commanding as it is.

Dean's sudden spike of desire is dizzying, his arousal intoxicating, the unconscious flick of his tongue over his lips the most sinful thing Castiel has ever seen. Lust has wicked the green from his eyes, and Castiel can see the bob of his adam's apple as he swallows, but it's the slight nod of his head that Castiel was waiting for. Dean's consent, his acceptance_._

He doesn't wait for Dean to continue trying to provoke him. He peels the denim off of his mate's legs as Dean braces and moves, raising up slightly to let Castiel impatiently strip them. Their clothes are tossed over the couch, landing out of sight and forgotten.

He needs this, he needs Dean to trust him. To trust that when Castiel plants a hand to his chest to keep him down, it's not going to slide to his throat and choke him. To trust that even as he's fingered open, manhandled until he's laid out just as Castiel wants him and swallowed down by Castiel's lips and tongue on him, that the hands on him will mark him, claim him, but will never turn violent.

Dean's willing and instinctive submission is beautiful not because Castiel wants to break him, but because he wants to be the one to put Dean back together again. There's something vulnerable and sensual in seeing Dean throw his head back, the pale column of his throat working as he grinds out curses and encouragement and unashamed moans and cries, egging Castiel on. Dean's arms cord as he clutches the edge of the cushion above him, desperately trying to follow the Alpha's growled order even when he spills down Castiel's throat and clenches around his fingers. He's still breathless and fuzzy-minded when Cas hoists Dean's other leg onto his shoulder as well, and slides home in one powerful thrust that presses him up towards the arm of the couch and tears a hoarse cry from him. "Fuck, Cas!"

In this moment Dean is his. No one can take this from him, take Dean from him, because Dean has given himself over to Cas. There is no courtroom, no looming threat, no trauma, no risk that they'll be separated by the outcome of the trial. No Alastair, no former 'clients' or childhood assailants to cloud Dean's eyes with fear. There is only the two of them, the shared taste of Dean on his lips as he kisses his mate, the breathless little grunts and cries he punches out of both of them with his movements. One foot braced to the floor for leverage, his other knee sunk into the couch, Castiel pistons into Dean; short, powerful thrusts that have Dean hardening again between them too quickly, his cheeks ruddy and his toned chest heaving as he drags his breath in counter to Cas's rhythm, just to lose it again the next time Cas drives him into the couch.

"Touch yourself. Come for me, Dean." The hoarse order tears Dean's eyes open again and puts him in motion before he can really consider it, fisting himself rapidly, eyes locked with Castiel's.

Cas is so close, his knot swelling to fill Dean, to claim him, to keep him, and he can't pull back enough to truly fuck into him like he wants to so he grinds into him instead, hard against Dean's prostate. When Dean finally spills between them again, Castiel clutches Dean's legs in a bruising grip and lets go of that last bit of restraint, turning his head and biting into Dean's thigh as he comes.

Dean is _his_.

xXx

Time enough has passed for Dean to drag the blanket down from the back of the couch to drape over both of them, but Castiel is content with never moving again. Dean has his face buried against Cas's shoulder and his fingers into Castiel's hair, one leg loosely tangled around him and the leg bearing the imprint of Castiel's teeth half off the couch. The Alpha is heavy against Dean, compact muscles and his boneless slump rendering him an immovable weight that keeps Dean there just as much as the knot, or the arms around him.

"Don't take the deal, Cas." Dean's voice is sex-hoarse and solemn, a plea, and Castiel manages just enough energy and will to hear him that he tilts his head and shifts slightly, brow knitting faintly. He doesn't want to argue any more, doesn't want to think this was Dean's way of making sure he'd be listening, giving in not because he wanted to, but because he wanted Cas receptive to hearing him. He doesn't want sex to be a tool between them, meant to twist them to each other's side.

Dean's eyes are closed, though, and the pain etched on his face drags Castiel back the rest of the way from his sated lethargy to blink at him, to pet a hand down his sweat-slicked side beneath the blanket. "Dean. . .?"

"Even if it guarantees no jail time, even if you think it's the smarter move, or you think you're saving me from . . . whatever. We. . . _I_. . . need to fight this." Castiel brings his hand up slowly, cupping it to Dean's cheek, his thumb tracing a line of moisture that isn't from sweat, tracking the side of Dean's face and the bolt of his jaw. Castiel's growing alarm leaves him cold as he waits for Dean to continue. "It's not that I need some kind of revenge or whatever. I can take them getting away with it, Cas. Shit, I don't ever expect the law on my side." His huff of sardonic laughter is thick with the tears he hasn't shed.

"Then why. . .?" Dean turns his head, cheek still cupped in Cas's palm, and this close Dean's eyes are impossibly green, sorrowful and lost. In contrast his voice is firm, unyielding, still laced with the anger of before.

"Because if you take the deal. . . you're not just selling yourself out, Cas. You'll be _paying_ those assholes for what they did to me then, and what they tried to do to me again. Then I'm still just an Omega whore for sale. And I can't. . . I can't take that from you too, Cas. So please just. . . I'm telling you, don't take the deal."

Not after how things fell apart with his father. Not after five years of coming to believe that someone he loved, that he idolized, sold him like some kind of animal. Years spent trying desperately to convince himself that he's worth more than someone would pay for him and only half believing it.

The morning Castiel realized he was in love with Dean, he speculated that Dean would break his heart someday. He didn't understand that it would feel like this, the twisting stabbing ache of realizing that it's just as much his own fault that Dean doesn't fully trust him as it is any past trauma or phantom scars. The nausea of realizing he never even considered the implication this would have for Dean.

He could have destroyed them, while fully convinced he was doing the right thing.

Castiel's apologies and assurances and affirmations of his love are a quiet litany as he carefully moves them on the couch, enfolding Dean against him and promising, but Dean has fallen silent and is still in his arms.

xXx

"Is everything okay? Between you two?" Sam's hazel eyes are worried, the sad puppy face as he tries to pinpoint what it is that's off between them, tries to win some sort of answer out of his brother and his client as they settle into chairs at the motel table.

Castiel doesn't have an answer for him. They've been quiet around each other since Dean climbed off of the couch and went to scrub himself clean, erase any scent of himself, and locked the bathroom door behind him for the shower.

It's been an intricate dance of close-quarters and troubled minds, and somehow despite being precisely what they've done since the day Cas moved in with him, it lacked the same intimacy, the unnecessary touches and the quick smiles from Dean. They worked around each other, getting ready to meet Sam at the 'war room' for dinner, but not together.

"We're fine." Dean's brusque dismissal doesn't convince any of them, and as Charlie finishes setting up their computers she raises both eyebrows disbelievingly, and exchanges a look with Sam that puts Dean's teeth on edge. "Just drop it, and tell us what we're here for and what the plan is."

Charlie looks alarmed when Sam jerks his head towards Dean while looking at her, prompting her. She may be a whiz on the computers and research end, but Dean is pretty sure they should never let her in a courtroom. He and Sam can manage a silent conversation with looks, hell he and Cas are pulling it off these days, but she makes faces and shakes her head and mouths 'he's your brother' before being goaded into starting, the entire exchange brief but catalogued by narrowed, suspicious green eyes that she forces herself to meet when she turns.

"This is actually kind of part of why we're here, and why Sam called me in. He was worried about how the jury's going to perceive you guys, when you're asked stuff you don't want to talk about, because of your. . ." She lets her breath out in a sigh, and with it all inclination to beat around bushes, blurting out her point without softening it. "You get pissed, and Castiel turns into a robot. And not the cute one the audience roots for, the scary Cylon who's deciding how best to kill you. It'll play into how Crowley's going to try and portray you and hurt your case."

Castiel narrows his eyes slowly, hands flat on the table, and Dean's chin rises stubbornly, arms folded over his chest defensively. Sam has to fight the urge to slap both of them upside the head with the fact that they're proving the point without saying a word. Instead, he tries to appeal to his brother's reason.

"Dean, our entire defense is a sympathy one. The jury has to believe Cas felt strongly about helping you, and they have to see you as a . . ."

"Little Omega who needed someone bailing him out?" His eyes slide towards Sam, furious, and Charlie makes a cutting motion over her neck repeatedly, warning Sam to shut up, though all three of the Alphas in the room with him know how angry he is steadily becoming.

"Look. You guys. We have tonight to figure out what we're doing, and we need to be ready to go by Sunday night. So whatever's doing this. . . whatever this is, we gotta deal with it." Charlie pulls a hairband from her wrist, tying her hair back and shoving her feet into ridiculously colorful Keds, jerking her chin at the door and speaking to her boss. "Why don't we divide and conquer, or we're not gonna be ready. Dean. . .?" Dean's eyes slide to her, jaw bunched, and she holds the door for him. "You've gotta know someplace good around here, right? I'm starving. I'll buy, you drive? We can bring dinner back for everyone."

Divide and conquer, and he's not even with his brother. He's being dispatched to pick up dinner like some kind of servant to the trio of Alphas running his life now.

Dean's silent and simmering in his anger the entire elevator ride down to the lobby below, and Charlie doesn't mention it, doesn't try to coax him out of his annoyance until they're in the Impala and he's fitting the keys into the ignition. "So what, we're supposed to go out and 'girl talk' until. . ."

Charlie shakes her head, rolling her eyes. "You know, for someone who's dealt with this for years, you're seriously going to pull a sexist line at me, Winchester? Do I look like I'm good at 'girl talk?'" Charlie spreads her hands, and indicating herself counter-intuitively. Because yeah, she looks like a cute ninety-pound chick in pink and grey checked plaid over a Wonder Woman t-shirt. Dean tries to tell her as much with a look, and she shrugs, shaking her head.

"You're with me because your brother won't nut up and talk to you like I've been telling him to, okay? And we're the ones getting dinner because I've worked for him long enough to know that his idea of dinner would be all of us eating rabbit food." She has a point there, and Dean grudgingly admits it to himself. "So get your panties out of a wad, dude."

"So 'girl talk' is sexist, but 'panties in a wad' . . ."

"Anyone can wear panties." Charlie counters smugly, and blinks as his silence drags on under the pretense of getting them out of the parking lot and onto the street. She turns in her seat to look at him with widening eyes and a grin. ". . . Woah, TMI."

"I didn't say anything." Dean growls, embarrassed, and Charlie laughs, drawing more damning defensiveness out of Dean. "And it was just the once."

"You didn't have to say anything. You're like. . ." She waves her hands airily in his direction. "_Broadcasting_. And I'm so not judging." He knows the commentary isn't over yet. Lower lip caught between her teeth, Charlie faces front again, and gives it two beats before continuing. "Was she hot?"

Rhonda Hurley was indeed hot. And the only other Alpha Female he'd ever been around, brief as that encounter was, though Charlie doesn't know that story and never will. He answers by flicking her off, winning him another laugh and a smile, and despite himself he begins to relax.

"C'mon, Dean. Find us someplace good. I haven't gotten to just go hang out and have dinner in a restaurant without getting looks in years. We can be each other's beards. An Alpha and Omega walk in, we'll let them just assume which one of us is which. Please?"

It turns out Charlie Bradbury doesn't do puppy eyes, but she's got a killer lower lip pout and childlike hopefulness when she tries. And he understands, completely, what it's like to secretly worry about something as stupid and simple and easy as just going out to eat by yourself.

And that's how Dean Winchester ends up on a platonic date with a lesbian Alpha.

xXx

By unspoken agreement they're on dessert before the conversation switches back towards business. As Charlie chases the last of her milkshake with a straw and Dean folds the menu closed after ordering the to-go meals for Sam and Cas, he frowns at the reminder of the fact that his brother and boyfriend are doubtless talking about him.

"So, what isn't Sam telling me this time?"

Charlie doesn't seem thrown by the change of topic and tone, but she stops trying to fish the cherry out of the bottom of her cup and looks up at him, sucking whipped cream off of her fingers. It's such a bizarre thought, out of nowhere, that he recognizes again that this thing with Cas is serious, and seriously having an effect on him, because it registers more like a kid-sister thing than a hot lesbian thing. He feels a brief pang for the death of a lecher who had always been predominantly a bullshit lie anyway, part of his front. Maybe this is what settling down feels like.

"That you're benched until you hit the stand." When Dean bristles, she holds a hand up, her eyes imploring. "That's not our call. That's pretty much just the way it always is, and Sam didn't think to mention it. You want your strongest witnesses to go last, because that's the impression you want to leave with the jury. You can't have witnesses in the courtroom until after they testify, or they're being influenced by other people's testimony."

If they do this, he's leaving Cas on his own to listen to whatever filth gets spewed about him, as the assholes who raped him, possibly even the man who broke him, sneer at him from the stand.

The food is heavy in his stomach. He feels ill, and Charlie's look is a bit too sympathetic. "Look, it blows, I know. But if you go right before Cas, you can take a seat and be there when the verdict comes in, and before that when he takes the stand. . . and we're kind of banking on that. Sam needs you there when Cas goes. Because the only thing Sam knows Cas gets all emotional about is_you_. Sam's back there right now prepping him on what he's going to be asked and how he should react and stuff that's been gathered and what he's going to see through the trial, but he's also telling him that no matter who's asking the questions, the person he's going to be talking to up there is _you_. You, you're going to talk to me."

That last part throws Dean, leaves him blinking at the petite redhead across the table.

"No offense, you seem awesome… but I don't _know_ you."

"Exactly." Charlie says, like he just stated the brilliance of this bullshit plan for her. "Look, hear me out. You get angry telling this to Sam. Like. . . really, really defensive. Sam said you were biting his head off in the pretrial when he had to ask you about the assault."

Dean grinds his teeth, but doesn't argue the assessment.

"And I get that, Dean. No one's telling you how to feel, or how to react, or how to cope. This is. . . it's a really shitty situation, and I'm pissed at what Crowley's trying to do and it's not even aimed at me. I can't imagine how this is for you. And you're having to tell Sam about it, and . . ." Charlie blows out a breath, leaning back into the bench behind her and shrugging. "I've known Sam for a few years, now. . . since college. He talks about how he always had you to look up to, how you pretty much raised him." Dean grimaces, and Charlie rests her hand on his on the table. "I think you try to live up to that. So this is a lot harder to tell Sam. And it's hard to tell Castiel because you two are shacked up."

"So I'm supposed to spill my guts to you now." Dean summarizes flatly, and after a moment Charlie sighs and draws her hand back across the table, looking up and waiting for the server to finish trundling from the kitchen with their to-go bags. She doesn't answer until they're out of the restaurant, the plastic bags swinging between them.

". . . I think it'll be a lot more genuine if we don't try and coach you into what to say, if you don't sound scripted, so I'm not. . . I'm not going to throw twenty questions at you. I don't want to make you keep going through this. But I think, maybe you should know a little more about me, and how Sam and I met."

"I'm listening." Dean rumbles when she pauses too long. Charlie is pursed-lipped, trying to determine where to start.

"Look, I didn't go to Stanford. Not. . . really. I mean, I got all of the professors' class notes for anything that I was interested in, and I've got transcripts that say I went to class, and I probably would have kicked ass, but I didn't go. Foster care. . . wasn't my thing, so I pretty much just made up my life for myself. I'm a code-monkey and a lot of things are digital, so I just . . . did my thing. After a few years fleecing Stanford kids, I got a reputation as the girl to go to if you wanted a test, or a 'study guide,' or a website built, or something hacked. I was just an email address and a PayPal. And so when this huge scary Alpha kid showed up on my doorstep like the one-man Brute Squad, I freaked. I still have no idea how he found me."

A life of practice and an obsessed father, though Dean doesn't say as much. He's starting to guess where this story is going, and he's not sure he wants to hear it any more. Sliding into the car, carefully setting the bags down on the center of the seat, he waits until she's strapped in before confirming his suspicions, eyes fixed straight ahead and key still in his hands.

"Sam had you looking for me, didn't he?"

Charlie looks relieved that he figured it out on his own, nodding. "He pretty much lived at my place for four months, slept on my couch and looked over my shoulder. I kept his grades up whenever he missed classes, same as mine, kicked him out when he needed to actually be there. I was all but his assistant starting then. I built him a website to collect tips through, and hacked a lot of law enforcement agencies and was pretty much dispatch for the search. And then when he graduated, he got me the job."

"You don't know me, Dean, and I don't really know you. . . but I sort of figured things out while I was getting everything together to look for you. You don't have to try and pretend, y'know? Just. . . when you're up there, you tell me. My story is messed up enough that I'm not going to think any less of you, and I already know the outline."

xXx

_". . .none of them would have made it out of there alive without him."_

The recorded voice on the television filters out to them as Charlie opens the hotel door, and Dean sees his brother first, sitting to the side, laptop open in front of him and another playing video through the larger screen to Castiel.

Cas, who glances his direction for a split second, but doesn't otherwise move. Hands clasped against his jaw, eyes narrowed, shoulders pulled in defensively, he lets his attention remain on the doe-eyed redhead on the screen in front of him.

_"You testified on his behalf, at the disciplinary hearing?"_ Charlie's voice asks in the recording, Charlie herself off-screen, and the unfamiliar redhead nods.

_"I did."_

"Can you tell the court why?"

_"Father Castiel saved their lives, and risked his own doing it when he could have walked away. Anyone else in uniform, they would have had the President pin a ribbon to him. Instead, they discharged him without. . ."_

The video feed cuts off, Sam finally recognizing that they've entered the room, and Castiel ducks his head down briefly, letting out a controlled breath before unfolding from his hunched position at the table.

"I thought witnesses shouldn't be influenced." Dean's first remark makes Sam grimace, and if he weren't looking for it, watching Castiel's face carefully from across the room, Dean probably would have missed his boyfriend's flinch.

"This one's for Cas's trial. He's defendant, not witness, and it's a deposition in his defense and he can't influence her answers. He asked to . . ." Sam responds, ready to give a law lesson as he comes near his brother, ready to apologize for not letting him know the witness thing either. Dean shakes Sam off before he can reach him, putting Sam's food down on the table. He doesn't want his brother's comfort, his apologies. Not yet. He gets that this time, it was probably just an oversight. He understands that Sam, who apparently thinks in legalese like a huge geek, just assumes he knows it too because he's supposed to know everything. But after Alastair this morning and the witness crap tonight, he needs Sam to give him space.

His brother's a smart kid. He looks morose about it, but takes the food as the gesture it's meant to be, and sits back down. Dean doesn't offer Cas his food: he extends his hand, clasping Cas's wrist and drawing him to his feet instead, planting himself between Cas and the other two Alphas in the room.

"We've got tomorrow and Sunday for this, right?" he asks Sam, a challenge in his stare, and he already knows the answer so he continues without pause. "It's been a long-ass day. We're getting out of here."

Because Castiel is_miserable._

He doesn't know how Sam can miss that, how Charlie doesn't see it, but he knew it the second they opened the door.

Dean doesn't linger long for farewells, dragging Cas out behind him. They're silent down to the car, the dissonance that had cropped up only hours before still lurking between them, though Cas does nothing to try and win his wrist back from Dean. He's grateful for the rescue, though the responsible choice would be to stay, to commit to the legal discussions.

They don't drive home. Tires rumble over gravel roads, Led Zeppelin plays low enough that he would have to strain to make out the words, and Dean steers them with the air of someone who knows precisely where he's going, bringing them west and out of the city, until Cas is squinting against the light of the setting sun.

He doesn't know this place, the pale ash-blighted grass field overlooking wilted trees, but it's secluded and quiet, one of the county's many creeks sluggishly tracking through the land and eventually meandering to join the river. Dean takes them off of the road, bringing the car gently to a halt in the grass, and then he throws open his door, taking Castiel's food with him. Castiel follows once Dean climbs onto the hood of the car, laying himself out with his back to the windshield.

There is no summer storm to watch this time, no tarp between them and warm hood of the car. The air tastes faintly of ash, and the stream nearby glubs sickly, thick and muddy, but when Dean leans against his side and rests the Styrofoam takeout box on his lap, stealing a fry, it feels almost natural, almost normal.

The day has been an emotional rollercoaster, between Gabriel's arrival, Castiel's confession to Dean, their argument, the sickening realization he had about his own selfishness, realizing he will have to face most of his criminal trial without Dean, and hearing himself praised as a hero for murder when he'd chosen the video hoping for the comfort of seeing a familiar, friendly face.

When he gives up picking at his food, Dean moves it aside, curls his arm around Cas's waist and draws him in to rest his head on Dean's shoulder, the both of them watching the first stars come out. He doesn't know if this is truce or forgiveness or merely pity, but he curls into Dean's side and tries not to question it.

When he feels Dean press his lips to his temple briefly, his mate's breath ruffling his hair in a warm gust, Castiel can't help but feel this is the last calm before the storm.


	26. Chapter 26

Dean wakes Monday morning to a buzzing phone and an empty bed. Fumbling across a cold span of sheets, he swats at his phone twice before managing to palm it, knocking a few battered paperbacks away from Cas's side of the bed before managing to bring it to his ear. "Didn't I just hang up on you?" Dean slurs in annoyance as he stretches in place, blinking his eyes open to frown at the empty side of the bed.

It's chilly, the air conditioning is blasting his skin, and the bed seems vast and lonely even knowing that every bed he's slept in since he was a teen is technically bigger. There's no sense of _panic_ to waking alone and some part of him knows that Cas won't have _left_ him, not really. It just feels _wrong_ now, to wake up able to move his limbs without untangling them first, to not have Cas's body heat making him swelter.

"Wrong sib, Dean." Jo's voice rings out over the line too loudly, too cheerfully. "Though it's cute to think you and Sam stay up all night on the phone like a couple of girlfriends." Dean grunts, too tired to manage a retort, and Jo's tone softens. "Mom's doing breakfast for everyone this morning before the trial starts. Don't take too long getting around or she's going to bury me in pancakes, okay?"

He doesn't linger on the phone with Jo long, and he barely remembers the conversation. He's too busy scouring the room for any sign of Cas. He finds him moments later in the living room.

All of Cas that Dean can see from the doorway is tousled hair and tangled limbs at the edge of a pool of lamplight. Castiel has got both arms wrapped around the cushion that should make up one half of the couch's backrest, tugging it to his chest curling around it possessively, his face buried into the upholstery. John Winchester's tax returns, the business's finances, check stubs and credit card receipts litter every inch of the coffee table, organized in ways only Castiel would know, and Dean frowns at the scene before him.

Cas has staunchly maintained that he finds numbers comforting: they do as they're told, follow strict rules, and they always add up in the way they're meant to. Since he moved in, he's used burying himself in paperwork as a useful way to soothe his worried mind while Dean worked on cars, getting Dean ready to sell and cut his losses with the family business. This is more than pre-trial nerves. They're still strained, he and Cas. He knows that's on him, and wishes he could help it.

Dean hasn't pulled away, though: _Cas_ did. Cas recoiled hard from the realization of what his deal-making could have done to Dean, and from the hurt Dean apparently can't mask from a man starting to understand his moods to a frightening degree. Now Dean isn't sure how to _fix_ them.

But the guy is sleeping on the couch after doing taxes all night, and it makes Dean ache to see it.

Tugging at the cushion pulls a familiar sleepy complaint from Cas; the same displeased grumble that slipping away from Cas always drags out of him. The Alpha ends up wedged into the space the cushion vacated, a frown painting his features, his face creased with the seams of the fabric he has spent his night clinging to, arms falling limply once they're empty. Until Dean crawls into the loose circle of his limbs, reclaiming the place that has been reserved for him since they fell into this relationship.

He knows the moment Cas registers the change and wakes up; he tenses marginally, fingers flexing to press into the bare skin of Dean's chest and stomach. His head angles on the couch until he can rest his forehead against the nape of Dean's neck, his breath skating over Dean's skin. Dean can feel it when all of the tension slips out of him, a warm gust of an exhalation, and then Cas's knees butt against the back of his, reshaping him. Cas's arms tighten around Dean to bring them back-to-chest, and he draws in Dean's scent like he's taking a hit of the world's most potent drug. Hell, maybe he is.

Maybe he's Cas's addiction now.

Maybe Cas is his.

Maybe that's what the entire 'mate' crap the world romanticizes is really all about: just hormones and pheromones and chemical intoxication. They're just nestling into the couch, but he feels more relaxed already and he swears he can feel the contentment settle over Cas incrementally, that 'closed link' of dopamine and oxytocin Cas described for him. It's woven itself into the fabric of their relationship and Dean doesn't know what to think of that after years resenting biology, because it _feels_ right now. Today, though, isn't the right day for a freak out over the effect they have on each other: he's banking on it, counting on soothing Cas's frayed nerves.

Linking their fingers together, Dean raises Cas's hand to his mouth, brushing a kiss over their interlocked knuckles. "Creeping out to the couch in the middle of the night, now, Cas?"

"Couldn't sleep." Dean can feel Cas's response more than hear it, breathed against his back. Dean's snort of disbelief garners a slightly more alert response. "I became . . . engrossed. I didn't intend to fall asleep out here."

There's something Cas isn't saying, and Dean can hear it in his pauses and hesitations. He gives Cas a moment, trying to coax him into filling in the gaps, but Cas presses a kiss to his shoulder and tightens his arms around Dean instead, clearly putting something aside. "How much time do we have?"

"None." Dean admits, and there goes that grumpy huff and mutter again as he reluctantly untangles himself, using their linked hands to pull Cas upright on the couch beside him, where he squints, frowning, disgruntled, sleep deprived and now apparently sex-deprived: he doesn't say as much, but Dean _knows_ what mornings are for in Cas's mind. Dean rolls his eyes. "You'll survive, ya friggin' nympho. Go make yourself presentable. We've got a stop on the way. I've got your suit out. Blue tie, Charlie says that's some sort of signal that you're honest and trustworthy."

"And it brings out the color of my eyes." Castiel's deadpan is as accurate as ever, whether he seems off otherwise or not. Dean's sardonic scoff may not be the most flattering response ever, but it's at least honest amusement and Castiel appreciates that this morning.

"I don't care if you go woo every juror there, Cas, just don't kill anyone. Capisce?"

"I capisce." He promises, already slipping into the bedroom to grab his suit.

They've burned too much time curled up together on the couch, and the rest is dedicated to ensuring Cas is court-ready and not forgetting anything, and Dean is prepared for the day. Dean doesn't notice Cas pocket several folded pieces of the financial paperwork on his way out of the door, tucking them into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and closing John's books behind him.

xXx

Nobody at the Roadhouse looks as if they got a good night's sleep, and the early morning is taking its toll on the generally nocturnal crew. Ash is actually stretched out along the pool table, feet hanging off to preserve the felt and an arm thrown over his eyes. Ellen is nursing a cup of coffee in one hand as she brings in more food than any of them are going to be able to manage. Jo flings herself into Dean's arms as soon as he walks in to crush him in a hug that he assumes is meant to be supportive, but comes across mostly as being incredibly thankful he's arriving to save her from Ellen's worry-induced mania.

It takes him a moment, blinking, to put together that they're all dolled up.

He's seen Jo in the cream suit before, when she came to the jail and pretended to work for Sam. Ellen, he hasn't seen in anything but jeans since Bill Harvelle's funeral, but she's in a dark sheath dress, with a matching blazer tossed over the counter and her dark hair is pinned up simply but neatly. And Ash. . .

"Dude, your shirt has sleeves."

Dean's tired. It seems like a completely valid way to greet the room at large considering the circumstances. Anyone who disagrees can bite him. Ash, for his part, just raises his arm straight into the air without sitting up, throwing Dean devil horns. "Damn right it does, hombre. You'd better appreciate it." And sure, maybe the sleeves are plaid, but the cuffs are buttoned, and it may be jeans but there aren't any holes in them. Apart from the mullet, Ash looks. . . almost _normal_. It's surreal.

"Jo and me, we're not getting called up for Cas's case and that jackass lawyer's not letting us anywhere near his trial now that he has our depositions." Ellen has come around the bar, and she's about three inches taller than he's used to, her heels clicking on the wood floors as she approaches him and slings an arm around Dean's waist, and around _Cas's_ as well as if he's just another of her 'boys,' dragging them towards the bar with her while Jo trails them. Ellen looks like some sort of churchgoing respectable business owner, instead of the no-nonsense bar owner Dean knows can cuss out a sailor when pissed and shoot that shotgun across the back of her bar like a pro, and it's seriously screwing with his entire concept of the world.

Jo beams at Dean, bumping her shoulder against his and turning to include the frowning and thoughtful Castiel at his side with her next words as, skirt of not, she perches on the edge of the bar a seat down from Dean and winks at the two of them, sliding plates of food their way. "We're your cheerleaders. There's no way we're letting you sit in there alone, Cas."

Castiel swallows thickly, opening his mouth to respond as Dean squeezes his hand, their fingers lacing together again on Dean's knee as they sit. "I. . ."

"We're cheerleading? Are there costumes?" Charlie Bradbury breezes in as Sam holds the door for her, and stops three steps into the bar to stare at Jo, eyes widening as she slowly smiles at the pretty blonde bartender, flirtatious and completely comfortable in her own sexuality. "_Please_ say we have costumes. Wait, no. . . Tell me you're Dr. Badass?"

Ash sits bolt upright on the bar table as if electrified, swinging his booted feet around to clomp onto the floor as he takes his first look at the computer hacker who foiled him; the supposed cerebral love of his life. "The Queen of Moons?"

Dean nearly inhales his first gulp of coffee, trying to laugh at the same time. Castiel closes his mouth without finding a response and raises his eyebrow, faintly confused. Sam and Ellen exchange a look, and seem to simultaneously come to the conclusion that they're not taking part in whatever bizarre tangle of geeky romance and doomed unrequited crushes just landed on their doorstep.

By the time Gabriel joins them, pouring what looks like a full cup of sugar into his coffee and chattering far too much for the early morning hours, they're set.

Castiel has more family than he could have asked for watching his back, and now Dean has eyes and ears on the trial for him.

If Castiel looks distracted and slightly strained in socializing, and only picks at the massive breakfast put in front of him, it's accepted as nerves.

xXx

"You ready?"

Castiel shrugs, his usual awkward raise and drop of his shoulders without any particular elegance to it. Fingers curled around the handle of the Impala, eyes on the courthouse and a furrow in his brow, he seems to be weighing what to say.

"Of course he's ready." Charlie offers from the backseat helpfully, and Dean flashes her a look in the rearview that has her zipping her lips, locking them, and pocketing an imaginary key. And then immediately speaking again regardless as she excuses herself instead of trying to remain silent and supportive at the same time. "Look, I'll go check on Sam, make sure he's got everything with him. Don't drive off without me, okay?"

She doesn't wait for Dean's response, slipping out of the back seat of the car to join the congregation of family and friends on the asphalt outside, gathering in the parking lot and ready to mount the courthouse steps. She's trying to give them a minute, and Dean appreciates it: hands still on the wheel, he ducks down slightly to look up at the courthouse past his family. Not long now.

"C'mon man. You've been off all morning." Dean murmurs once they're alone together, as though they have to whisper in the confines of the car to keep the crowd outside from hearing them, from judging them. "You gotta talk to me. If there's something going into this. . ."

He's going to go stir crazy waiting like some kind of useless prick for word back, pacing holes in the floor, wondering if Castiel is going to get through this trial able to look at him ever again. Not that he's looking at Dean now. Palms open on his knees, fingers slightly curled, he stares down at his hands as he weighs a response.

"If I knew something, or suspected something. . ." And woah, hey, where the hell did that come from? Castiel falters and closes his mouth again, blue eyes narrowing as he scowls as if his inability to finish a goddamn sentence is the fault of the world. Dean's eyebrows shoot up, and he unbuckles his seatbelt and turns to face Cas on the Impala's leather bench seat.

"The hell are you talking about, Cas?"

Knuckles rap against the glass beside Dean's head, and he _doesn't_ jump because he's not paranoid and twitchy, but he does scowl because he's getting pissed at interruptions. This is already proving to be a non-stop whirlwind kind of morning, and it's all the worse because he knows he's going to be spending the rest of the day with his thumb up his ass while other people do the heavy lifting. Because it's Sam, he manages to turn the urge to cuss someone out for the interruption into an annoyed stare over his shoulder instead.

Damnit. They don't have time for this. Cas seems to have come to the same conclusion. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he slides his way across toward the seat to the driver's side to cup Dean's face in his hands and kiss the hell out of him, as if he needs the reassurance that he's still _allowed_ to kiss Dean. It wins a collective groan from Gabriel, Jo and Sam, and Dean raises a middle finger at the collected bitchy sibling crew without breaking the kiss because he _needs_ this. He needs Cas to be comfortable initiating touch between them again.

Cas breaks the seal of their lips a moment later, resting his forehead against Dean's, eyes too close to make out the details of them. "Nothing they say is going to change my opinion of you. And I think. . . I think I know something that you should work on during the trial." A slip of paper comes out of Castiel's pocket, and tucks into the breast pocket of Dean's plaid shirt, without letting him have it. His hand braces over Dean's chest, holding it in place for the moment, his palm to Dean's heartbeat to soothe himself and he raises his chin to press his lips to Dean's forehead.

"I never meant to hurt you, but I did. And I think. . . I believe I understand now. I think we were looking at the wrong side." Dean doesn't know if Cas is being a cryptic bastard, or if he's just talking about his emotions and the screwed up not-deal. The entire thing seems ambiguous and without context. All that frowning and brooding, you'd think Cas would have managed to figure out how to explain himself, but for now he doesn't try. Ellen and Jo are hurrying into the courthouse to get past the line in, and find them all seats together. Ash is loitering near Charlie, but Sam and Gabriel couldn't be more obvious about their impatience if they turned knocking on the windows into a game.

"I love you." If he doesn't go _now_ he's going to be late. Cas steals another fleeting kiss, already pulling back to open his door as he does.

He prays to God he's not about to hurt Dean again.

He prays he's right, that this slip of paper he's brooded over for the past week will suddenly make sense to Dean the way it did to Castiel after their fight. He can only hope that he's not blindly looking for miracles, like the priest he once was.

"Hey!" Dean's propelling himself out of the driver's side door, leaning against the top of the car as Cas joins an impatient and frazzled looking Sam. Bastard, the tie _does_ bring out the blue of his eyes, especially in the morning sunlight like this. ". . . Me too. Same."

Castiel blinks at him and for a minute Dean thinks he's going to actually have to make himself say it for Cas to catch on. After a moment, Castiel smiles: a genuine, full smile, crinkling his eyes, and it's . . . shit, they're at the start of what's going to prove to be a miserable day for both of them, but that smile is beautiful.

"Yeah, yeah. Just don't kill anyone!"

"I'm not going to _kill_ anyone." Castiel half-grumps, but even then his smile is unshaken.

"I'll take him down if he tries." Gabriel assures Dean, clapping Cas on the shoulder and half hauling him towards the courthouse. "Don't pretend I can't, Castiel. I've been kicking your ass since you were knee-high to . . ."

"Knee high to _you_? You will notice I outgrew you slightly in the intervening years." Castiel rumbles, but allows himself to be pulled back on track and chivvied across the parking lot.

Still in the lot, Sam raises a brow at his brother at the sudden change in mood, a knowing glint in his eyes, and gets a headshake in answer and a smile that Dean doesn't even have to fake this time. "Not a fucking word, Sammy. Knock 'em dead. Good luck."

Halfway up the stairs to the courthouse, Gabriel nudges Cas's side, smirking to himself when his brother blinks like he's coming back to earth to look down at him, because he's obviously taking scenic day trips back to that car with Dean mentally. "Quit smiling, bro, it's creepy."

"Why is everything I do 'creepy'?" Castiel protests, holding the door open with his elbow for his brother, Sam, and Ash to join the queue for the metal detectors, leaving his hands free to finger-quote, and even then he can't really muster up the ire to seem put out by the opinion.

"Don't beat yourself up over it, kiddo, it's not your fault I got the lion's share of the charm and the looks. By the time it got down to you, we were scraping the bottom of the barrel." Gabriel slaps Cas on the shoulder as he passes, smug at his brother's inability to formulate a comeback at the moment.

Dean _loves_ him.

"Head in the game, Cassie."

He just put the emotional equivalent of an atom bomb into Dean's pocket.

He's on trial for assault, and may face jail and separation from Dean.

Head in the game. Sam's watching him as he drops his briefcase onto the conveyer, eyes narrowed curiously as Castiel visibly forces himself to tense again, to resume his stoic demeanor.

Back at the car, Charlie leans against the passenger side door and smirks at Dean, shaking her head slightly. "Smooth, Casanova. Real smooth."

"Yeah, shuttup." Dean grumbles, swinging his eyes away from the doors of the courthouse as they swing closed, and fixing a slitted gaze on Charlie. "No one who spent the last hour gaping at my little sister is allowed to comment on my moves."

"Dude, your 'little sister' is _hot_."

"Ash seems to think you're pretty hot, yourself." Dean teases, and Charlie blows her bangs out of her face, opens the passenger door, and flops down into the Impala in Cas's recently abandoned seat. "What, no comeback your Majesty?"

"Hey, no false modesty from me, Dean. I can't shut this down." Dean rolls his eyes, and turns the key in the ignition, and it's when he moves that he remembers the papers in his pocket. Charlie adeptly changes topic as he fishes Castiel's cryptic message out and straightens crumpled papers against the wheel. "So, prosecution's witnesses go first. He'll call someone, Sam will cross-examine them, that'll keep going until Henricksen figures he's had his say. That could be all day, or it could be this morning, but we've pretty much got hours to kill until we know. We'll man the war room, keep an eye on Crowley's comings and goings, and bring lunch to the courthouse and catch up, see how long we have before you're called in to. . ."

The papers in front of him make no sense. A crumbled receipt for a home improvement store, its ink faded to soft blues that are murky at the edges of each digit. A five year old tax return for his father's business. Old bank statements from the same year. Five years ago. It's just. . . receipts. Finances. Old ones, even, until he keeps going.

A bank receipt for the deposit of just under forty thousand dollars . . . three hundred and twenty five dollars a day less taxes for his 'services' over four months of captivity, Dean did the math once. God only knows what Alastair was charging; he made sure Dean was damned appealing with his heats, worked him through multiple 'clients' a day, and charged more to let them pop a knot, or get handsy, that much he knows. They slurred in his ear that he'd better make it worth it for them. He sure as hell made a profit even after his 'whore' was paid for with this check. His stomach churns, and the last of his euphoria fades instantly. Here's the proof. In his hands, he is holding the clear sign of what his father did.

It's the final sheet of paper, though, Castiel's careful block letters crawling across the page outlining his thoughts and questions, that brings it all together.

- NO SIGN OF IMPACT ON BUS. OR PERS. ACCTS.

- BANK ACCT. OPENED IN MICHIGAN (?) FOR FUNDS

- RECEIPT FROM DETROIT HDWR STORE

- ACCESS TO SW'S RESEARCH (?)

Dean's world tilts, and scrubbing a hand down his jaw he blinks, and then tears through the papers once again to look at the address stamp and date on the deposit slip.

Holy _shit_.

xXx

"_All rise!"_

The shuffling of men and women of the jury and court to their feet is loud in the room, and Castiel squares his shoulders as he directs his gaze to the front of the courtroom, too aware of the audience and the jury, of his brother at his back and his mate's family spreading along the front row behind him, a silent show of support. "The seventh district court of the state of Kansas is now in session, the honorable Judge Turner presiding."

As Turner addresses them briefly, as the jury is sworn in and Castiel feels himself tensing for a fight, Sam slides a message over in front of Castiel on the table before them, penned across the top of the paper.

_We only need one juror, Castiel. One juror, and they can't convict._

He waits until Castiel's gaze flicks back to him, and nods slightly. "Relax." He begs Castiel under his breath, before turning his attention to Victor Henricksen as he commands their attention.

"Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury." Victor Henricksen is the picture of authority, of strength, as he positions himself to speak to the jury, the lines of his suit neatly pressed and his red tie a bold contrast to the rest of his attire.

"The defendant has been charged with knowingly, even brutally assaulting two men in sight of witnesses, and aiding in the assault of two others." Henricksen jabs a finger in the direction of Sam and Cas without breaking his prowling pace beside the jury box. "At no point in these proceedings will you hear the defense deny those charges: he freely _admits_ it. The defense is going to paint the picture of Mr. Novak being a heroic figure, but the evidence presented to you will show that he is nothing more or less than a man who embraces violence, who resorts to vigilante behavior, because he feels that the law that applies to you and applies to me doesn't apply to him. The evidence and testimony you hear in this courtroom will prove that other avenues were available to him, and yet he _chose_ to assault these men, and feels no remorse or regret for those actions, and that he is guilty of every one of the charges laid against him."

Henricksen holds the gaze of one juror, than the next, giving his words a beat to sink in. This is it: the opening statements are their chance to color the lens through which the jury looks at all evidence, at all testimony and proceedings, and Henricksen is far from incompetent at his job: he _believes_ his words, and wills the others to as well, compelling in his complete conviction. With a look to the Judge and an incline of his head, the prosecutor returns to his position, and Sam takes his cue to speak.

"Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury." Sam doesn't approach the jury as Henricksen did: he won't let himself loom, won't make them feel threatened by his size and bearing. Instead, he remains near Castiel, gesturing at his brother's mate as Castiel breathes out slowly, attempting to resist tensing at the attention, or slumping under the weight of Henricksen's accusations. He looks smaller and less imposing beside Sam, and the younger attorney is counting on it. "Doctor Novak was leaving work after a trying day, to see a man whom he had watched grieve over the loss of his father attacked and beaten. We ask society not to stand back and watch, and as a man of strong convictions and morals, Doctor Novak. . ." He places gentle emphasis on the title ". . . stood up for what he believed was right: he saved _my brother's_life."

It's a calculated risk, throwing out his relationship to Dean before it can be turned against them somehow in the proceedings. He needs them to see Dean as _human_, as _valuable_, and he needs them to see Castiel as the hero Sam wishes he still fully believed Castiel was.

"His quick action saved my brother, who has been assaulted by this same gang before and had his life ripped apart because no one else stood up for him when he needed them years ago. Doctor Novak has continually placed his health, and his safety, and his comfort, second to those of the people he cares for; this is something we _look_ for in men like him, that we demand of him personally and professionally. To punish him for doing the _right thing_, for the _right reasons_. . ." Sam spreads his hands, putting Castiel's fate at their feet, his hazel eyes wide and pleading. "That would be the true travesty of justice."

Returning fully to Castiel's side, Sam rests a hand on his shoulder, a show of support as Cas nods his thanks, ducking his head down.

"The prosecution may call its first witness." Rufus Turner is completely comfortable in his robes, lounging in the judge's chair as if he's holding court instead of running a trial, but his dark eyes are sharp and analytical as he turns to Henricksen.

"The People call Doctor Zachariah Adler to the stand."

xXx

"Um. Dean. You're kind of scaring me a little here." Charlie's voice reaches him finally, pulling him out of his thoughts, and he shoves the papers into his pocket again and throws them into reverse, taking them out of the parking space and on their way.

"We're headed back to my place. Then I'm going to need those computer skills Sam hired you for."

He knows what Castiel suspects, now. . . but they need to _know_. _Dean_ needs to know.

"Oh-kay. . .?" Charlie knows enough, she was part of this entire mess the first time around. Sam brought her into their fucked up family lives, but Dean's not certain how much farther he should drag her. His little brother slept on her couch for four months. She played dispatch to John and Sam both, she had to have gotten a feel for his family.

"Five years ago, the guy who took me. . ."

"Alastair. He's listed as a witness for the defense, for the guys who assaulted you." Charlie interjects, nodding. "He's part of who we're keeping an eye out for, in the war room." Sam, bless his bleeding heart loyal misguided asshole little brother, he hadn't mentioned Alastair going missing. He hadn't wanted Dean under suspicion from anyone. Meanwhile, he's got Charlie watching flights and hotels, to see if he'll turn up after all. Charlie, who after all that digging for Sam probably knows as much about Alastair as anyone but _Dean_, who can recount the smell of him, the yellow tinge to his eyes, the way his touch made Dean's skin crawl . . .

He guns it as they hit the highway, letting the Impala roar her freedom; his father's car, Dean's baby. He needs away from those thoughts, and he puts it into driving, focusing on the road, his words a low growl.

"Yeah, well, I don't think he's going to be making it to the trial."

Maybe John Winchester _was_ a crap father. Maybe he _was_ a drunk. Maybe he _was_a revenge-obsessed bastard.

But he was damned good at it.

"Starting to think my dad put him in the ground five years ago."


	27. Chapter 27

"Objection. Assuming facts not in evidence."

Sam's voice carries, clear and commanding, his eyes trained on Henriksen as he prowls the front of the courtroom before the witness stand. The two attorneys are hyper-aware of each other, calculating tactics, planning strategy, and striking only when necessary. This is the most civilized form of combat Castiel has ever witnessed, but it _is_ combat. Castiel has made himself stop watching Sam, because he _knows_ those faces. Knows the cant of his jaw, the set of his shoulders, knows the burr of displeasure in his voice. It's the wrong face, the wrong body, the wrong brother, but Castiel can tell the look of a Winchester mid-fight, even if Sam has learned to school it into crisply delivered words and legal jargon.

It would be heartening, a Winchester fighting at his side, if Castiel didn't feel handcuffed into not helping himself. He is effectively silenced and bound not to come to his own defense by the rules of the court, and he isn't_designed_ to let others fight on his behalf. Allowing Sam to fight for him feels wrong, and leaves him a simmering, futilely angry mess. He's not sure if his discomfort with Sam's help is because he is Dean's _family_, because he moves and sounds like his brother in a way that a man who physically looks little like Dean shouldn't manage, or if Castiel is coming to genuinely appreciate Sam for his own abilities and personality on his own, but he _wants_ to help.

He thinks the witness on the stand may have something to do with his increasing frustration as well.

Zachariah is treating the witness stand as a stage, a long-deserved spotlight for him and a transparent revenge for the insult Castiel dealt him by turning his back on the hospital. Cas is certain he's been described as a loose cannon three times already in Zachariah's short time on the stand. His minor infractions against the hospital have gone from being a matter for mild disciplinary action, to something indicative of a pattern of rule-breaking behavior and belligerence the likes of which would feel overdramatic even if scripted into the unrealistic world of Dean's medical dramas. But Zachariah hasn't restrained himself to just that.

Castiel's religion and his faith have been warped to brand him as an extremist.

His compassion for patients has been turned into a neurotic need for affirmation of his own righteousness.

Without setting foot in the hospital every juror could probably find their way directly from the parking lot to the security offices just within, or to the telephone by the door. Complete with diagrams.

The hospital's security has been painted as being almost para-military in their efficiency, rendering Castiel's assistance unnecessary.

And now, Zachariah drawls out the list of injuries Cast dealt Dean's assailants, seasoning his testimony with loaded words coupled with pretentious overly academic descriptions to drive home his profession. That would have been infuriating even without the medical background to _know_ that was what he was doing. As it is, Castiel seems to be the only one in the courtroom to see through that, and Zachariah _knows_ it.

A hand on Castiel's shoulder from behind squeezes briefly, as Ellen Harvelle offers a solid, steadfast support and proves herself stronger than she seems with one touch. He glances down to the fingers curled over his shoulder and finds a folded piece of paper tucked between the knuckles, a note from the row behind him.

_Anyone ever tell you that your boss is a raging douchebag? _Gabriel's words slant across the paper, and somehow even the cut of his letters manages to seem mocking. _Why the fuck did you put up with this asshole for years?_Castiel shrugs and glances back at his brother, meeting Gabriel's tawny eyes over the low wall between them. The fact that Gabriel has managed to sit still and silent for so long is a testament to his resolve to be here for his little brother; Gabriel never had much of an attention span for tedious tasks. Of course, he also has never suffered fools, bullies or assholes well, either. With a conspiratorial wink to Castiel, Gabriel lets out a silent dramatic yawn, stretching in his seat, indicating his boredom with the pretentious and repetitive testimony as obviously as humanly possible.

Zachariah's words falter momentarily at the deliberate lack of respect, eyes narrowing into a scowl.

Gabriel smirks at him and blows a kiss, cheeky and unrepentant and deliberately juvenile, but schools his face into polite disinterest by the time Rufus Turner or the jury redirect their attention from the witness to the gallery to see why the witness has stopped talking.

Castiel presses his lips together into a tight line and meets Turner's eyes evenly, then ducks his head as the judge's suspicious scrutiny moves on, glancing behind him to see Jo elbow Gabriel in the ribs, though even she seems as if she's trying not to laugh at his antics.

Sam _isn't_ fighting alone. They're in this together, all of them. And perhaps Castiel isn't quite as restrained as he might think. Plucking up one of the pens from the table, he slides his notebook into place before him, turns an ear to Zachariah, and begins tersely refuting Zachariah point for point, a bullet list inching down the lined page.

Sam glances at his client, at the paper between them, and nods his approval.

When he rises to begin cross-examination, he does it armed with a notepad full of Castiel's knowledge of medicine, of the hospital, and of Castiel's role there.

He _is_in this fight.

xXx

The very first day Charlie Bradbury met Sam Winchester, she ended up with a serial killer wall in her apartment. It stayed that way until Dean was found; four months of all of her research being unnecessarily printed out because when Sam's stressed he _thinks_better that way, thinks better with data he can touch and move and manipulate.

Even now, there's a bulletin board and white board that dominate one of the walls in her cozy basement office; testimonies are pinned to it, one at a time, witnesses beside them, their pictures and their statements gathered together and linked by timelines and evidence scrawled across their 'dungeon.'

They're never going to go paperless. She can send Sam all the emails she wants, create programs that organize everything he could need, but he's still going to want to practically have a book of crap in his hands by the time he's done with a case.

Seeing Dean immediately grab up a box of map pins as they enter the apartment over the garage makes her roll her eyes fondly, but she figures just by playing the odds in this family that it won't be the first time a Winchester has gone all "A Beautiful Mind" for décor in here. She keeps strange company, but she _is_ strange company, so that seems only fair.

"So okay. Are we trying to prove your dad _did_ kill someone, or that he _didn't?_" Dean's eyes are on the receipts gathered in his hands, shreds of hope . . . though hope for what, he's not sure. He shrugs after a moment, Charlie's question settling into his mind, and he can't put voice to his thoughts. Not fully.

"I don't know. Just. . . pull up what you've got from your original research."

"Your family is scary." Charlie sighs, as she follows him into a small room, remade into an office: a single table from the garage below is crammed into the space, the drywall scarred and pockmarked by obsessions past, patches of paint preserved in cleaner hues and dusty lines, only recently bared to light once more. Setting her phone on the table to claim it, Charlie pulls her laptop from its case as Dean moves on to his own workspace.

"Kind of why we're here." Dean counters quickly, but it's not one of his jokes this time. The tack spears the check stub to the wall, the center from which all things will spiral out, where his mother's picture once hung. If he's going to fall down this rabbit hole, he's going to do it the way he was _taught_ to do it, the way he was _raised_ to.

He knew he'd have to face the ghosts of his past in this stupid court fiasco.

Now maybe he can put a few to rest.

"I need to know everything you can find out about Alastair after he was let out. Then I need you to start looking around the time the check was deposited for anything in Detroit."

"Cryptic much?" Charlie starts up her laptop, dropping herself ungracefully into the only chair in the room. "I can make the computer dance and sing for you, but I've got to know the tune, Dean. 'Anything in Detroit' meaning. . .?"

Five years after the fact, John Winchester had still been walking free, and no one knew if Alastair was alive or dead. All they have are breadcrumb clues that it took Cas to see as anything but trash to begin with. And maybe Cas _did_win a little insight into John's head accidentally. . . but if you'd asked Dean five years ago, he'd have told you he knew his father better than anyone. The hardware store receipt finds a home next to the deposit slip, and he taps a finger to the faded paper thoughtfully.

How would his father hide a body?

A way John knew from personal experience could stump police for years.

"Start looking for fires."

xXx

The right to face his accuser ranks in the Constitution alongside his right to a fair trial. . . but at this precise moment, Cas is pretty sure everyone around him fears that one of these rights is sabotaging the other. He has told this entire little family all morning that they didn't have to worry about him 'killing anyone.' He promised Dean as he rolled his eyes and thought that his mate was being ridiculous with his repeated instruction.

And then Hardey walked onto the stand.

Ink like a bloodstain has spread across his hands, damning evidence of his lax grip on control, and a broken pen hemorrhages oily black across the notepad in front of him in. Beneath the edge of their table, Sam has driven blunt fingernails into his knee through the material of his slacks as a warning to ground him, a pressure to keep him in his seat, but Dean's brother is radiating just as much fury as Castiel is.

". . . Winchester's always liked it rough, you know? And he's like all of them Omegas, he'll beg you for it. He was rutting up against me, pumping out hormones making us crazy, when _he_ showed up."

On the stand, a single bead of sweat slides down Hardey's skin to stain the bandages over his throat: he wants to replace the clean white cloths with his hands, to choke off the hoarse croaking testimony of a man still recovering from the tracheotomy Castiel made necessary to begin with.

The entire courtroom is tense, and Castiel _knows_ that it's his doing, knows that the potential for violence boiling under his skin is tainting the very air around him. He can feel the bailiff's wary attention on him, knows other eyes are fixed on him as well, but it's nothing to him in the face of the sexist, vitriolic stereotypical _lies_ being spun by Nathan Hardey about his mate.

This man _assaulted_ Dean when he was just a _child_. His gang left him bleeding and broken and damaged, left him questioning his own worth long before Alastair came and stripped away Dean's remaining sense of self. Even now Dean can't talk about it without the scorn spilling over onto how he describes himself at that age. How he relates to his own gender. And now he is attempting to tear Dean apart again, to destroy the strength of him, to belie everything Dean is, everything Dean believes, how Dean struggles to be perceived.

With the shuffle of seats behind him, he doesn't even have to look to know what's happened. Gabriel has planted himself directly behind his brother's back, a compact source of potential energy, a briefcase bomb that Cas has learned in his lifetime not to underestimate for his size. Whether he's moved to warn Castiel away from doing something stupid, to hold his brother back if required, or to throw into any fight himself, Castiel couldn't determine unless he _did_ try to kill Hardey.

"Can you describe the defendant's behavior when he came into the parking lot?" Henriksen's distaste for his witness is a subtle thing: he still fully intends to prosecute Hardey as well and he has buried Hardey's testimony in the early portion of Castiel's trial, to give an idea of the events but not hinge his entire case on them. He's attempting to direct Hardey away from discussion of his own behavior, and keep it focused on Castiel's. To limited success, clearly.

"Didn't hear him coming until he was already taking us down. First thing I knew he was there, he looked like he was killing Roy; busted his leg, then grabbed his face and smashed it against his knee when Roy was already on his way down; Roy never even knew to look for a fight. Then the Omega bitch . . ." Castiel doesn't outwardly move, but Judge Turner turns his attention their way as Sam digs his fingers in deeper into the Cas's leg, and he realizes he must have vocalized his disgust at those words being used to describe _Dean_. ". . . Got his scent and went crazy for it. Surprised the hell out of all of us. Before I knew it, Doc there was in my face: he punched me in the throat, and I couldn't breathe, couldn't swallow. Socked me in the gut on the way down, so I was choking trying to throw up. One of them kicked me while I was down, when it was all over. . . I couldn't see who. All I could see was Winchester leading the doc back to his car. Heard when I came-to in the hospital breathing through a tube that they were shacking up, wasn't surprised. If he wasn't running from the cops I think he would've mounted that Omega right there. I . . ."

"You are a _rapist_ and a _child molester_ and . . ."

Gabriel's hand forces Castiel down before he has the chance to rise to his feet, cutting his words off with the gesture. Turner's dark eyes are intelligent, piercing, and don't miss a moment of it as he snaps a command to Sam, his eyes fixed on Castiel. "Mr. Winchester, if your client cannot control himself in my courtroom I am going to find him in contempt and throw his ass in jail, do you understand me?"

Still, there's something like triumph in Sam's eyes as he turns away from acknowledging the judge to look at Castiel at his side. This could hurt them. The lack of control on Castiel's part, the anger, could work against him. Cas was already being judged for it up until that point, however, based entirely on nonverbal cues. But vocalizing that accusation, in the hearing of the jury . . . Sam couldn't say it himself, but he can capitalize on it now that Henriksen's done with the man.

"Your witness."

The corner of Sam's folder is smudged with the ink from Castiel's pen, but the photographs inside are unmarred as he drops them in front of Hardey, for once playing to his height and stature as he looms over him. He can see the stark whites of his widened eyes, the fear in his gaze, but he's not going to attack. Not the way Hardey expects, at least.

It wasn't just Dean's already difficult childhood that changed entirely fifteen years ago, though. No matter how much Dean tried to shelter him, Sam was always more perceptive than he should have been. There is a reason he _wanted_ to be here. He took on this case as much for this opportunity to stand in front of the man who did that to Dean as he did to take care of Cas.

"Mr. Hardey. Can you explain to the jury, and to me, what sort of 'consensual' sex act is negotiated with a fist to the kidneys?"

"Objection." Henriksen throws out immediately, and as if he was waiting for it Turner responds on his heels. "Sustained."

Sam doesn't give either of them time to redirect him. "I'll rephrase. Mr. Hardey, do you often begin 'consensual' sex by punching your partner in the face within minutes of. . ."

"_Objection!_" Henriksen's hands are flat on the table, eyes fixed on the young attorney in front of him.

"Sustained. _Winchester_, you are not a prosecutor and this witness is _not on trial_." Not today, at least, and not at Sam's hands. Sam turns his eyes from Hardey to meet Turner's look head on, jaw bunched, head high and hazel eyes hard.

"No, I am not and he is not, Your Honor. However, his credibility as a witness is disputed by the facts in evidence, and as the nature of the crime my client interrupted _is_ significant to establishing his defense. . ."

Turner's aggravated huff is mostly a growl, and he waves Sam forward, Henriksen a thundercloud in his wake. At the defense table, Castiel spares an ear for the bench, attempting to hear the hushed, emphatic conversation that has Sam cutting his hand in Hardey's direction as he speaks to Turner and Henriksen both. He doesn't particularly _need_ to hear, though. It's clear to everyone in the room that Sam is being told to leave his personal attachments to this case at the door, to risk being held in contempt himself.

It doesn't matter, though.

Nate Hardey is _afraid_, now. The classic bully, he flounders when he is not in the position of power any longer. Here, Rufus Turner may be their God, but Sam Winchester is on a boy king on a crusade of his own. While he cannot resume his stoic demeanor entirely, Castiel forces himself to stillness in his chair, watching Hardey sweat it out with a predatory air until Sam nods once, tersely, and the three gathered at the judge's bench break. Henriksen stalks back to his seat, Turner stays leaning forward watching as if prepared to smite them all from on high the next time someone steps out of line.

Sam, for his part, plucks the photographs back up in his hands, holding them up to the jury and judge respectively, and while his words are clipped and precise, his back to Hardey, he hasn't lost any of his fire for being forced to lay his cards on the table at the start of the round of cross-examination.

"The Defense enters into evidence photographs taken by the Douglas County sheriff's office of the injuries sustained by Dean Winchester prior to my client's intervention. Additionally, the Defense will be entering into evidence depositions from Ellen Harvelle and Joanna Harvelle recounting an altercation the night before, wherein my client witnessed the _unwanted_ nature of Mr. Hardey's sexual advances towards Dean Winchester. I will also be submitting an audiotaped 9-1-1 call from fifteen years ago, _also_ from the Douglas County sheriff's office, wherein Mr. Hardey is named by eyewitness Bobby Singer as the chief assailant in an unprosecuted sexual assault _also_upon Dean Winchester as a minor."

"So . . ." Turning back to Hardey, Sam narrows his eyes, raises his chin, and looks down at the alpha on the witness stand once more, and the veneer of politeness across his words is thin, the threat beneath shining through.

"Let's start again, now, Mr. Hardey."

xXx

Charlie's cell phone buzzing, the vibration skittering it across the table, is the first thing Dean's given any consideration from him since Charlie turned her laptop his way and sat back in her chair, trying not to watch his expressions as he folded his hand over his fist at his jaw, green eyes following lines of text across the glowing screen and then settling on the image of a burned out building. Still it takes him a moment to force himself to redirect from a mystery several years old, to the fact that Charlie's phone ties them back to the ongoing drama in the courtroom.

Charlie has her lip caught between her teeth as she reads the screen, and he can tell just from looking that the news is mixed.

"What?" It hasn't been that long that they've been holed up here in the apartment; there's no reason for his voice to be hoarse from disuse, but his word is nearly a growling accusation that draws the petite Alpha's level gaze up to his. "It's Ash. They have Hardey on the stand. Cas isn't taking it well. Neither's Sam, but according to Ash he's grilling the hell out of him. I think they'll probably break for lunch after he's off the stand, to . . ."

Dean closes the laptop and slides it back towards Charlie, pushing himself to his feet. There's no real discussion; they don't know how long the rest of the prosecution's witnesses will take, and it'll be better if he's ready. While Charlie packs up her laptop again, puts the printer hauled up from Castiel's 'office' in the garage below out of the way, and carefully busies herself with reordering the stacks of documents, Dean takes advantage of the opportunity not to be under scrutiny.

Cas needs him. Sam needs him. He needs them both to be okay. He needs to regroup, pull his thoughts back together, and refocus: the two most important people in his life are slogging through his shit, and he's going to be there for them when they get out. Because he's done with people deciding things for him, fighting his battles for him: he doesn't want it, doesn't need it.

Unknotted tie around his neck, he grabs his suit jacket and his keys, holding the door open for Charlie to encourage her to stop staring at him worriedly, but he seems to reconsider his silence as she moves to walk past him. "Thanks. For, y'know. . ." He doesn't finish, but he doesn't have to. Charlie glances behind him into the apartment again, then meets his eyes.

"I don't want to tell you what to do, okay? But Sam. . ." He cuts her off with a terse headshake, propping the door open with his foot for her again.

"One fucked up family drama at a time." Dean's words are an edict, the end of the conversation, and Charlie frowns at him thoughtfully the entire trip back into town.

xXx

At precisely noon, the court recesses for lunch, the jury filing out first through the door behind them as the small crowd in the seats chatters and recedes through the main doors. Dean tenses, eyes narrowed, as Crowley tips an imaginary hat at him with a smirk from the hall, his shoulder leaned against door as he holds it open for others to pass, the model of mock genial nature.

Dean would bet he's there just to make them uncomfortable, himself and Cas alike, and the crappy thing is that it works. This is just the first trial. Crowley is still waiting his turn to fillet them on the stand. Raising a middle finger at the British attorney without giving him the chance to speak or taunt, Dean slips past him into the emptying courtroom.

Head in his hands, thumbs pressed to his temples, Castiel is listening to Sam silently, nodding slightly when prompted, but otherwise silent. Ellen intercepts Dean before he makes it far into the courtroom, resting a hand on his elbow and pulling Dean aside, her voice low and concerned. "You gotta get a handle on him. Or help him get a grip on himself. I know Rufus, he's been drinking at the Roadhouse longer than you've been alive. Same drink, same way, every day; they throw off his trial again, he's going to throw both of them in jail for a couple of weeks before he'll even finish hearing the testimony. Wouldn't be the first time."

Lips twisting faintly, Dean glances at Ellen and nods in understanding, and then he moves past, clapping Ash on the back in thanks as the hacker catches Charlie up in a low, urgent voice, leaning in toward the redhead. Gabriel is watching Dean critically as he approaches, hazel eyes narrowed to slits, and Dean can't exactly say he's surprised. This is the last fucking way he wants his boyfriend's family to 'get to know him,' hearing this kind of crap about his past, but he doesn't have much of a choice in the matter now.

Gabriel interrupts Jo's conversation with him by slapping Cas on the shoulder from behind, drawing his head up and pulling Sam's attention towards him at the same time. "Stop trying to burn a hole through the table glaring at it. You've got company and we're on a schedule. I'm_starving._You owe me lunch."

"We brought lunch!" Somehow, Charlie seems like she's making the offer directly to Jo, and _only_ to Jo. Well, that crush apparently isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Dean steals one of the bags from Charlie's hands, and moves to bracket Cas in from the other side of Sam. His hand comes to rest on Cas's shoulder, fingers edging the line of his jacket, Cas's hand rising to press over his skin, to hold him in place there as he turns his head to rest his cheek against Dean's wrist. It's not what he wants to do, but there are too many eyes on them still.

"Hour, right?" Sometimes, having a little brother is great. This time, there's no eye rolling, no bitchy commentary about how they should spend the time. No one here's thinking sex, Dean included, and definitely not Cas. Glancing at Castiel, Sam picks up his briefcase and slings an arm around Charlie's shoulder, pulling his redheaded assistant to his side as if to restrain her from his little sister, with the easy camaraderie of long-time friends that earns him a tongue stuck out at him in mock petulance. "Yeah, we've got an hour. Ellen's dropping Ash off at the Roadhouse, she'll be back when we reconvene. We could eat in the . . ."

Dean is already linking his hand and Cas's, drawing the bedraggled Alpha to his feet. "Nope. Got a plan. Guy I knew showed me a great place right around here. . ."

xXx

The stained glass windows aren't quite as stunning from outside, but the short walk through the city park from the courthouse towards the church gives them time to see the sunlight winking off of the cut glass, time for Castiel to let out a soft breath of understanding and slip his arm around Dean's waist, tugging him closer and pressing a kiss to his temple in thanks as they walk.

It's a little brilliant, if Dean does say so himself. He _knows_ Cas's safe space.

"I'm not giving you any whiskey with lunch. Just FYI. And not a friggin' word, okay?" Dean mumbles, but he can't help the swell of satisfaction at knowing he thought right. He just doesn't need Cas making a big production out of it with the motley crew of assembled siblings trailing behind them, eating and walking, Sam with his phone in one hand as he texts and his sandwich in the other, and Gabriel making a show of hooking an arm around both girls, boisterous and snarky now that he's free from the courthouse.

They hang back a few steps, all of them deliberately, allowing Dean and Cas to outpace them. Gabriel's the first to drop down onto one of the benches outside of the church, and unsurprisingly the duo doesn't realize they're on their own. With a twist of his lips, he watches his little brother pull his mate onwards towards the church steps, apparently murmuring directly into his ear.

Sam joins Gabriel on the bench moments later, offering him chips from the bag. "Kind of weird for me, too."

Gabriel scoffs, looking away from Castiel's back to the freakishly giant lawyer towering over him even sitting down like they are. "I've got tons of brothers, kid. Whole bunch of teenaged boys living in a house with cash to blow and no real parents, you think a little oblivious cuddling is going to freak me out? If it were anyone but _Castiel. . ."_

There's a wariness to Sam's eyes as he tilts his head to move his hair out of his face, watching Gabriel critically, and when Gabriel's eyes slide to the side he can see Charlie and Jo are blatantly eavesdropping as well. Cas, for his part, has settled beside Dean ahead of them, accepting half of a sandwich as he looks at the walls and windows of the church with the quiet sort of reverence he always has, and it's heartening to see considering how everything else about him has changed. Particularly the fact that he looks at Dean in the same way, like he's the only thing that makes sense in the world. "You guys aren't getting the whole picture here."

"So tell me." Sam's words are half challenge, half invitation, and Gabriel shrugs and pops a chip in his mouth, speaking around it, his expressive face darkening.

"I've known Cassy since he could talk, but I didn't actually _get_him most of the time. You got a family big as mine, you end up falling into groups, and I loved the kid, but he was one of the babies and the triplets, they kinda stuck together anyway. The four oldest. . . well, we had our own shit going on. And he was the weird one, y'know?" He sounds like a terrible big brother; hell, maybe he is. But the bar's so low in his family that even he can step over it; the fact that he's the one who looks out for the younger ones may baffle him eternally. Sam's offering him a politely curious, understanding look that makes him want to snipe at him, but instead Gabriel gestures at his brother with his food. "I don't know how much he's told you. But he joined the Army, went off as a priest, and got taken. I got the POW notification, and two days later Jimmy was in the hospital. Emmanuel pretty much had a mental break; one twin dying, the other one missing."

Sam winces, opening his mouth to tell Gabriel he doesn't have to go into this, but he's built up steam anyway so he might as well make sure that if his little brother's going to stay around these people they _get it_. "Jimmy wasn't in much shape to be worrying about anything but himself, but he was eating himself up about Castiel. Made me promise to look out for him, told me things to get me to try and understand him. Turns out everything _we_ thought he was weird over, Cas thought was _broken_ in him. So I see my little brother in love, see him finding something that makes him happy, some_one_ who does after all the shit _he's_been through. . ." Gabriel's stare is intense as he swings it to Sam, and the crumpling of the empty chip bag as he throws it away seems incredibly loud. "If your bro fucks this up for mine, or you fuck it up for them, I'll probably be the next one facing trial, comprende?"

xXx

The walk back is more relaxed, but Sam trails behind frowning at the scene before him as Jo falls in beside Dean, Gabriel beside Castiel, and there's a distinct focus on trying to lighten them up. Cas himself is the least active participant in the discussion, but Dean has an arm possessively around his mate's shoulders, and Cas has unconsciously fallen into step with Dean, his head turned to never let Dean out of his sight, out of his arms.

"You know, boss. I don't like to tell you how to do your job. . ." Charlie begins from beside him, earning an immediate huff of disbelief from Sam and a sarcastically lifted eyebrow, lips pressing together to hide his amusement.

"Yeah? When'd that start?"

". . . Oh, shut up. What I mean is, I think you're presenting the wrong case, telling the wrong story. You're focusing on the wrong thing for the jury." Sam is listening to her, and she knows it. As the others mount the courthouse steps again, Charlie stops Sam with a hand on his arm.

"You need to stop telling a story of Cas-the-hero. That's harder to prove, and people don't believe in heroes. . . but they do believe that there are some things worth breaking the law over." Gesturing up the steps ahead of them at Dean, at Castiel, Charlie watches Sam with unguarded optimism.

"You need to tell them the _love story_."


	28. Chapter 28

"You gotta stop letting it rattle you." Dean's voice is somewhere between a reassuring rumble and a terse command, kept low enough to be concealed by the chatter of the refilling courtroom. "I've heard it all before, and getting pissed isn't going to help. Just shake it off, hold it together, and don't. . ."

"Don't screw up. I know." Blowing out a breath that moves his hair away from his face, Sam's displeasure shows in his features. Dean's brotherly advice has been a mainstay in his life, but in these circumstances it strikes him as wrong. He'd been less conflicted about it even as a mutinous teenager, because at least then he'd been contrary just to be contrary. Now he wants to argue with Dean because he knowswhat this really is.

Dean may call Sam out on his bitchfaces, but there are times Sam really wants to call his brother out on the smirking, the carefully maintained façade that he cultivates, trying to prove to the world that this kind of thing doesn't bother him. He wants to point out that his brother can hide it however he wants, but Dean's put himself aside for others Sam's entire life, and that he deserves better than this. Mentioning it at the best of times just gets him snarked at for 'chick flick' moments, and on the worst days wins a him a quietly bitter quip about which one of them really should have been born the 'bitch.' Sam doesn't want to go down that road today. He can tell Dean's bottling things, shoving everything messing with his head someplace dark and distant so that he can focus on being there for Cas, and for Sam.

"Nah. I know you're not going to screw up." Clasping a hand to his brother's shoulder, Dean glances at the front where the bailiff is coming back and the jury is filing in, and then makes himself meet Sam's eyes. For just a moment Dean is so much older than he seems, more a father to Sam than John ever had been. "Just remember who you're actually here to defend, Sam."

There's no use trying to defend Dean from this crap any more. It's already happened. It can't be undone. The only thing that can be gained in this courtroom is Castiel's freedom; and with it, maybe some happiness for his brother in the future.

Slapping Sam on the shoulder as he releases him, Dean turns to briefly interrupt the conversation between Cas and Gabriel. Snagging his lover by the tie, Dean reels him in to press a kiss to his forehead, the creased and furrowed brow beneath his lips unknitting with the touch as Dean deliberately tests his own 'chick flick' boundaries, more tender than he'd usually let himself be in public. He doesn't linger to reassure Cas again verbally; everything he has to say to Cas, he's already said, or would rather not do here with an audience. Meeting Cas's upturned eyes, Dean waits a beat with his thumb resting on the cleft Cas's his chin and his fingers curled along Cas's cheek, until the Alpha nods his silent understanding and cups his hand over Dean's briefly, grazing his lips over the inside of Dean's wrist, his breath warm against the sensitive skin.

Achievement unlocked: chick flick moment in front of his family and the world at large.

"Yeah, yeah." Dean points an admonishing finger at Jo and Ellen without turning to face them fully, before Jo's sudden irrepressible smile can become words. "Shut it, brat. You can wait to talk about my relationship behind my back, like everyone else here." Turning to Charlie, Dean jerks his chin towards the empty chair beside Sam, thumbs hooking into the pockets of his slacks. "You stay here and make sure they don't get thrown into jail. I'm good."

Dean doesn't wait for a confirmation, or more chattering from the group of them, he just slips his babysitter and down the aisle as the Judge enters the room. The bailiff begins calling them to order, and the shuffle of everyone rising to their feet at once is loud enough to block out the sound of his footsteps in the opposite direction, and silence any objection that could be thrown at him. He steps aside, politely holding open the heavy wooden door for a hawk-nosed woman with steel grey hair.

It's not until he sees the contempt painting her features that he looks at her closely and places her face, digging back in his memories of this town. Mrs. Hardey had never been one of his favorites in school, but in dozens of instances of her sending him looks of disappointment at missing homework because he was busy taking care of his little brother's dinner and upbringing, or her concern over him falling asleep in class out of sheer exhaustion, pity when he sat in the classroom alone during parent-teacher nights waiting when John never showed, she'd never looked at him in hate.

"Omega whore."

It's a momentary thing. A breath of a word, their eyes meeting as she parades past him haughtily, raising her hawkish nose into the air, the hiss of breath between her teeth lost to the rest of the room. He's heard it countless times before, but never from the mouth of the woman who'd loaned him books that he had quietly coveted, and left him a sandwich once when he was out of cash in his lunch account, and used the last of the bread for Sam's.

Then again, he hadn't accused her precious Alpha son of rape yet.

He hadn't presented as an Omega.

The door closes behind him with a hollow thud, and in the hall he finally lets the nonchalant air he'd adopted for his mate and his brother slip, shoulders tensed, chin high, defensive as he strides towards the main hall.

Back in the courtroom, everyone takes their seats but those at the defense table. Hazel eyes fixed on the jury, Sam considers them carefully, noting the faces of those who watched Dean's interaction with Cas, trying to get a read of their thoughts on the affectionate display. It takes him a moment to pay attention to the redhead at his side, before Charlie's alarmed look and continued presence at his elbow really catches his attention. It's true that she should be here, if she's going to be at the courthouse anyway, and if Sam and Cas are already struggling not to be thrown out of the courtroom.

But Dean ditched them in a building where he knows his assailants are gathered.

Cas's shoulders are tense, and despite himself he's twisted in his chair, looking out over the gallery of people and watching the door swing shut behind his mate as he disappears behind the last of the stragglers; his worry is a tangible thing, obvious to everyone around him. The last thing they need is the jury to think he isn't paying attention to the trial. Charlie has her lower lip caught between her teeth as she jerks her head towards the door, asking Sam if she should follow Dean as planned instead of stay.

With a put-upon sigh, Gabriel rolls his eyes as he comes to a command decision, stretching in his seat (Jo ducks his arm and glares at him as he rises to his feet) before addressing the group around him, his low voice still earning him a glare from Judge Turner. "Falling asleep in here. Going to get some air."

Castiel's expression at his older brother's transparent ploy is deeply thankful, and earns him a wink as Gabriel leans over the half-wall between them to speak.

"Repay me by keeping your ass in the seat by yourself." He cuffs his brother upside the head irreverently as he slips past Dean's gathered family on the bench, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans beneath his luggage-rumpled olive blazer, ambling down the aisle as Henriksen addresses Turner.

"The prosecution calls Roy Etheridge to the stand."

As the second of Dean's assailants takes the stand against him, Castiel forces himself to face the front again, to live up to that promise.

xXx

The sink smells like someone used it as an ashtray while nervously waiting for their trial, but the water from the tap is cold and blessedly clear. Dean shoves his tie into his pocket to keep from watermarking the silk, then ducks his head to splash his face, top of his head grazing the mirror.

It's been too long since he's had a moment on his own, now: too long of people staring at him, keeping tabs on him. He loves his brother, and he realizes now that he loves Cas too, and Charlie is endearing as hell and was helpful, and he knows his family's just trying to look out for him. . . but sometimes a man needs a moment to think without being stared at like a bug in a box.

Bracing his hands on either side of the sink, he raises his head and looks himself in the eyes, as if to force self-reflection he has to be able to face himself literally.

John Winchester died friendless, alone, and cut off from his sons because Alastair took a look at Dean in a bar and decided he had 'the best cocksucking lips he'd ever seen on a bitch.' Dean was the dumbass who didn't keep a close enough eye on his own drink, and it all ended with John drinking himself to death.

His fathered murdered Alastair for him.

And he still has no idea what he thinks of that.

"Fuck." The word is emphatic, echoing off the tile around him, and he isn't surprised by the immediate response.

"Offering that in public bathrooms, now, too? You really are such a slut." Raising his head, he meets Hardey's eyes in the mirror unflinchingly. When Dean ducked out of the courtroom, he did it braced for a fight. Hell, he almost relished a fight. He can see the slight smirk curling his lips, the way he shifts posture, ready to throw down if needs be.

Maybe his fight-or-flight instinct has been fucked up for years. Especially for an Omega.

"Nice croak you got going there, Nate." Turning, Dean leans with a false casual air against the sink behind him as the door he'd pinned Cas against swings closed behind Hardey. "And I hear chicks dig scars. At this rate, maybe someday you'll be able to find someone who'll fuck you willingly."

Hardey snarls hoarsely, stepping further into the bathroom, and Dean tenses as his hands go to his fly, but doesn't flinch away as his assailant steps towards the urinals. The entire room smells like aroused and violent Alpha, and Dean rolls his eyes, pushing away from the sink and moving towards the door, done with the bullshit attempts to demean him.

"You smell fucked out all the time now, bitch. He make you wet? Tell me, you bend over for the doc in the parking lot, or did you wait until you got back to that shitty apartment of his?" Dean stops with his hand on the door, shoulders tense, jaw clenching.

Cas's apartment. His books, his stuff, the complete invasion of his life. Hardey did that; and now Dean knows it for sure. He's not afraid of Hardey: not in the bar, and not here where they're one-on-one and Hardey can't do anything without bringing a half dozen cops into the room in a moment. Their locale means checking his own fury as well, though, and his voice is tight with forced control.

This is bait. He's baiting Dean, trying to get a rise out of him, trying to get him to ruin the court case going on down the hall somehow.

"Was trashing Cas's place your idea, or your lawyer's?"

Hardey doesn't answer him directly, but Dean didn't expect it. "Almost popped a knot just walking in there. . . If I were the doc, I'd keep you plugged up all the time. . . "

"Yeah, yeah. Heard it before." He's done with this shit, and the longer Hardey lingers the more clear it becomes that the jackass is probably planning to jerk off in the middle of a public bathroom just to fuck with Dean. He's on-edge, tired, worried, and done being treated like shit. The words spill out, vitriolic, turning Hardey's own weapon back on him. Though it makes Dean sick to do so, he knows the insult that will cut the deepest, that will enrage him. "Enjoy being someone else's 'bitch' in prison, asshole. Saw your mother in the courtroom, you might wanna ask her to send you some soap on a rope. Given how she looks at 'bitches,' I'd find someone else to beg for lube though, when you start getting pounded yourself. . ."

Wrenching open the door, he storms out into the main hall, and he can hear Hardey behind him, snarling out a retort and following him, and he's ready for it. All he needs is Hardey to throw the first punch in front of the cops at the end of the hall. Fifteen years this has been festering, and it wasn't even him to put the asshole in the hospital. If he can get Hardey to take a swing, though, he can put him in jail.

It's a hand on his shoulder outside of the bathroom that surprises him, making him feint to the side, suddenly expecting one of the other attackers to make an appearance and blinking at what he finds instead.

With Dean out of the way, the swinging door smashes into Nathan Hardey, setting him back on his ass on the bathroom tile with the force of the impact.

"Woah. Guess I didn't see you there, champ." Gabriel tucks his foot against the door to keep it open, a smirk creasing one cheek as he stoops his compact frame, eyes leonine in color and predatory slant belying the affable humor in his tones. "Guess that's proof you should always watch your step. Hell, you never know who'll be behind the next door right? Not even safe taking a piss in public, I guess." The words are perfectly innocent, but for a runt of an Alpha, Gabriel is scary. Every syllable is infused with a hidden threat, and his smile widens.

"Your fly's down. And you seem to have a little problem going on there. Might wanna fix that carefully; I hear injuries there hurt like a bitch."

Unfolding himself, Gabriel steps back to the opposite wall, settling himself against the bench facing the bathroom without waiting to see if Dean's going to join him, reaching into his jacket when the door swings open to admit Hardey into the hall again. He tenses until Gabriel draws out a slightly melted candy bar from his pocket, winks, and finger-guns at the Alpha.

Dean snorts in amusement despite himself, pushing away from his defensive posture against the wall to join Castiel's brother on the bench.

"You my new babysitter, then?" Resting his head against the wall behind him Dean closes his eyes, forcing himself back down from his readiness to fight. "I had it. I didn't need the assist."

Gabriel shrugs, taking a bite that crunches on the nougat of the candy bar. "I got bored."

"And Cas is freaking out about keeping an eye on me." Dean counters, and Gabriel doesn't deny it. His silence lingers as he finishes his candy bar slowly, and Dean opens his eyes and glances at him. With a languid shrug, blowing off the seriousness of his words, Gabriel finally answers.

"Yeah, well, we learned paranoia early."

Dean's questioning look is left unanswered. That isn't Gabriel's story to tell, and not every family secret need come out in the first month of knowing one another.

xXx

Juror #5 is nodding along.

Charlie's note is simple, but foreboding. Roy Etheridge shifts in the witness seat, his face a bruise, his hands tangled in his lap, and every word of his, every nod of that juror, is another blow to their attempts to get Castiel out of this trial declared innocent.

"When we met up with Winchester in the parking lot, I didn't know a thing about Doctor Novak's claim." Nate Hardey was easy to dismiss, easy to see the inherent bigotry he learned at home. But Roy either believes every word he's saying or he's wasting himself in Lawrence when he could be making a killing as an actor. "I've never laid a hand on another man's property. I never would."

Because in the eyes of this man, of that juror, and aspects of the law, Dean doesn't belong to himself.

He is a possession of his Alpha. First John as his father, now Castiel as his mate.

"Can you describe for me the defendant's behavior, when he approached you?" Henriksen is dangerous to their case, now, his tone reasonable, coaxing, and he can tell that this witness is resonating better with the jury.

"I didn't get to see much." Etheridge instinctively touches his fingers to the bridge of his obviously broken nose. "First thing I knew he was there, he was putting his knee in my face. Didn't say word one, just came up behind me and took me down." As if to defend Castiel, to make sure he isn't coming across overly harsh, Etheridge continues stumblingly. "It's not that I blame him. I remember when we were kids how bad it hits you, first time an Omega's got you hooked. You'd do anything. I hear Doctor Novak was a priest first, I know what it's like, first time feeling that."

In excusing Castiel, he has also gotten the jury to excuse the childhood assault on Dean; and the jury is buying it. They're buying that these men's sin is touching another Alpha's property without permission, rather than abusing a human being. That Castiel was pheromone-drugged by some Omega prostitute who claimed the naive Doctor as mate in their first meeting, as if on the very day his father died Dean latched onto the first available moderately successful Alpha and dragged him down.

Castiel looks faintly ill, and Charlie's hand on his elbow is there to comfort more than restrain him, and she hooks the notepad across the table to herself, writing another note to Sam as Henriksen gives them their witness. Glancing at it, jaw flexing, he shakes his head once and rises to his feet, straightening his suit jacket in an unconscious attempt to armor himself.

"What exactly was your interest in Dean in that parking lot?" Sam's voice is cutting, accusatory, but Roy blinks at him owlishly from the stand.

"My wife and I, we've been trying to have a baby five years now. She got the ash sickness bad as a kid, don't know if she'll ever be able to have one. We've talked about using an Omega for a few years now. . ." Etheridge spreads his hands, pleading, meeting Sam's gaze unflinchingly. "We're a good family. . . not as good as Doctor Novak's, maybe, but here in Lawrence people know we're good for our word. I'd have taken care of the Omega, if it took. We'd have made sure the baby was raised up right, and we'd have paid you for the surrogate."

By law, if Castiel hadn't been in the picture Dean would have been Sam's legal responsibility. He could have sold Dean into a farm the way Alastair's lawyers made a judge believe their father did, and it would have been entirely legal.

This is the kind of knowledge that sent him to California. To Stanford.

Teeth grinding, Sam turns away from Etheridge, gathering his next question, and spots Crowley sitting at the end of an aisle. With a wink, he knows: Crowley fed his client this, after the disaster of Hardey on the stand. He probably did it subtly enough that Roy didn't realize this counter was anything but his own thoughts, his own rationalization.

Sam should have listened to Charlie, should have let this witness go without giving him the opportunity to dig them in deeper, but he's been too caught up in confronting them to listen to sense. Just another Alpha overprotective of an Omega they perceive him with claim over, another demonstration for the crowd.

He dismisses Etheridge from the stand curtly, angrily, and Henriksen watches Sam as he moves to stand beside Castiel again. Right now, Henriksen has the upper hand, and knows it. His evidence is fresh in the minds of the jury, with the bruises of the two men Castiel attacked. The longer they drag this out, the more unpredictable the outcome. "The prosecution rests, your Honor."

Knobby hands steepled before him, Rufus Turner eyes the two lawyers in front of him carefully, before, gesturing to Sam. "Ball's in your court, then, Mr. Winchester."

Win or lose, there are only two witnesses that can decide the outcome. Everything else is stalling.

"The defense calls Dean Winchester to the stand."

xXx

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?"

God is still in Kansas courtrooms, in the form of a stiff bible that calls to mind for Dean the one destroyed at Castiel's apartment. This one's cover is sweat-stained by the hands of all witnesses before him, including the men who he's here testifying against. His hand is steady and his voice hoarse when he responds, but he can't help but hope maybe God'll take Cas's side in this, finally put in a good showing for his former priest, still quietly searching for him in hospital wards and empty pews and stained glass windows and liquor bottles and curled in bed around a faithless Omega.

"I do."

His feet feel leaden, the short step up to the elevated chair of the witness stand is a mountain, and Dean regrets the candy bar Gabriel tossed him from the vending machine in the hall, now cloying on his tongue and disgusting with the alkaline taste of his own nervousness.

He doesn't show it. Hell, Dean's known how to put on a face for years, but this feels different. He wonders, looking across the courtroom at Castiel where he sits too tensely to be truly stoic, if this is Cas effecting him somehow. If this is the trade-off for oxytocin and dopamine, some kind of feedback of their worry and nervousness.

Cas would just give him some science-geek answer, but it'd be a chance to curl his arm around Cas again, calm him down, maybe take a little comfort in return.

(He's so whipped. Jo's going to give him shit about this for years.)

Dean would like to go ask Cas, and Sam for that matter, what put a bee in their bonnet so soon after he brought them their lunch, but he's stuck in this uncomfortable chair as Charlie gives him a ridiculous surreptitious thumbs up from next to his brother, who hasn't looked up yet. "Can you state your full name for the jury, please?"

He has the urge to say something smartassed in response to Sam asking him for a reminder of his name, his little brother whose first wordwas Dean's name. He tamps it down on the impulse for the audience and the situation. "Dean Winchester."

Something must have leaked through his tone, because he earns a fleeting very familiar unamused expression from his little brother, and they win a stifled titter from a juror on the end.

He can work with that.


	29. Chapter 29

For fifteen years, Sam has watched the development of the persona in front of him, the careful construction of his big brother. Dean had always been protective of him, always been caring, but when they were kids he was just. . . Dean. The obedient son, dedicated to raising his brother. Sam thinks that this began shortly before Dean dropped out of school, after he'd recovered physically if not emotionally from the assault.

It started with layers of leather and plaid to make him look more built, until manual labor broadened his shoulders and chest to fill out their father's jacket. It continued with Busty Beta Beauties probably stolen from a gas station (or more disturbingly, from their father) and Casa Erotica, always Alpha on Beta, as if he could trick his body out of his heat instincts if he tried hard enough. It was in his teenaged belligerence daring anyone to try and touch him again without his permission, and as he honed his self-defense, listening to their father's every word like it was gospel. It was in the meticulous way he showered every morning, drowning his scent in pungent soaps, and scrubbed himself clean like he was trying to take his own skin off at the end of the bad days.

And it culminated in this: the slight curl of his mouth, the confident set of his shoulders in his funeral suit, and the complete liars' persona that could probably fool most people in this room into believing him an Alpha himself, if his Omega designation hadn't been a topic of conversation through every single witness, every moment of this trial.

For all the days Sam's watched Dean be able to turn this on like the flip of a switch, for all he knows that this is Dean's every day now, on his own for years, it's never hurt him to have to dig at it, to tear at the edges and try to get to Dean behind the defensive shell, the way it does in this courtroom.

Because right now, Dean's defensive instinct could hurt Castiel's defense.

Sam's showing his own nerves, rubbing his hand over his mouth as Dean finishes telling them about the encounter at the Roadhouse, and he's always been able to keep himself cool in the courtroom before. This is screwing with him, not because he hasn't heard about this in the pre-trial, but because he knows he's going to have to hurt Dean to reveal him.

His brother is amazing, especially after what he's gone through. And he needs the jury to see that.

"Dean. . ." It's a calculated choice, referring to his brother by first name, humanizing him to the jury and keeping it as natural for his brother as he can. "Tell me about the morning Dad died. When you met Doctor Novak again."

It's a low blow and Dean's perceptive enough to spot emotional manipulation. Pulling their father's death into this in front of an audience is not winning Sam any favors with his brother. Jaw flexing as he bites back whatever response he has to that, Dean shifts in his seat, folding his arms. He's trying, it's obvious, but he's too guarded for it to seem natural, and at that first prod at an emotional situation he's gotten factual and clipped.

"Got up early and found out they'd keyed my car up pretty bad after they were kicked out of the bar. Decided to drive it anyway to the hospital. I'd been there the night before, when I got into town, and they made it pretty clear he wasn't coming back from the accident. Cas was his doctor, introduced himself. . ." Dean's eyes cut to the table behind Sam, where Cas is sitting with Charlie, and Sam breathes out in relief when Dean shrugs awkwardly, a slight smile curling his lips. "I only figured out Cas was the one who bought me the drink at the bar because he was awkward as hell when he saw me. Think I bit his head off. It. . . uh. It wasn't a good morning."

And he handled it alone, to keep Sam from having to make the choice himself. He's redirecting the testimony back into Cas, trying to keep Sam out of it now too. And that's what Sam was going for.

"So you and Doctor Novak were unaware at that time that you were mates?" Dean turns his head to look at his brother again, eyes narrowing, and Sam takes the step to put his back momentarily to the jury in his prowling, widening his eyes at his brother with his next words. "The encounter was professional?"

Since they were kids, he and Dean had always been able to communicate fairly well without speaking. Their warning system was nuanced; a look, a tone, tilt of the head, and they knew how to steer each other clear of trouble. He isn't leading his witness. . . but he damn sure wants Dean to know what these jurors are currently thinking of how his relationship with Castiel must have started, if they're buying the excuse that Cas tried to murder Dean's assailants for touching his mate.

He can see the moment it clicks for Dean.

"Dude, it wasn't. . . he stuck in the room while I waited for the pastor to do Last Rites, and explained to me what was going on, that's as 'racy' as it got in there." Raking his hand through his hair, Dean's brow furrows and he frowns, shaking his head. "I was there because my dad was dying, I wasn't looking for a hookup. And it's not like that."

"Not like what, Dean?" Sam is coaxing, pushing for further detail, and he can handle Dean's righteous indignation because it's real and right now they need to deal with Etheridge's testimony before they move on. So he feeds it, just enough of the goading little brother creeping into his tone to get Dean talking.

"Like a friggin' porno plot or something! That whole thing, dropping each other to the floor the second you meet your mate, every Omega panting after every Alpha's knot all the time, it's all a pack of bullshit lies. It's cheap way for skin flicks to skip to the fucking. . ."

"Language, Mr. Winchester." Judge Turner's warning clicks his brother's teeth together, full lips pulling down as he looks back over his words to find out when he started cussing, gathering himself to continue again.

"Yeah. Sorry, your Honor." The title and apology are tacked on, Dean remembering the judge's pretrial warnings and curbing himself accordingly, but he's built up steam. "It just pis. . . ticks me off. Either Omegas are some kind of sex-starved skanks, 'breeders' desperate to be knocked up all the time, or we're like poseable blow-up dolls, and that's not how it is."

Sam's courtroom pacing has taken him back to the front of the defense table, and Dean's tracking his motion, now facing his family and his friends and Cas at the table. Castiel's coloring is already a little better, as if he just needed Dean there standing up for himself, proving them all wrong, to feel better about this. Dean's offers a faintly encouraging smile to Cas, and Sam knows they're in this together. He's not manipulating his brother, Dean's in this show with him.

"So how was it with Doctor Novak." Dean's eyebrow arches minutely, a hint of the smartass, and Sam clarifies the question quickly so he doesn't sound like he's asking Dean to grade sex with Cas or something. Behind him in the courtroom, he can hear Gabriel stifle a snicker, and the smack of Ellen's hand to the back of his head. "I mean, at what stage was your relationship with Doctor Novak on the morning of June 20th."

Dean shrugs slightly, licking his lips and glancing past his brother to Cas. "There wasn't really a relationship. I didn't even know his first name. He was just. . . he was a damned good doctor. Took care of Dad, stuck with me when . . ." Dean shrugs, looking his brother in the eye again. "Cas never denied buying me the drink the night before, but he didn't expect anything from me and kept it about Dad. If there was any 'mate' crap going on. . ." Cas grimaces at the dismissive tones for the concept. ". . . I was a little too distracted to notice it with Dad dying there." The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. Dean shrugs awkwardly, and amends that statement before Sam can move on or Cas can take that the wrong way. "He was comforting. I dunno."

Sam nods, as if he's said something important, and latches onto Dean's words. They're getting there, easing into the narrative he knows Charlie wants him to touch on. "Did Doctor Novak say or do anything that indicated he was interested in you, on the morning of June 20th?"

Dean smirks, but it's Dean's smirk, and he watches Cas with his next words. "He made me a fresh pot of real coffee, bought me a hospital breakfast, and gave me a couple aspirin for my headache, tripped over his tongue a couple times." Cas is nodding as he ducks his head down, agreeing with that assessment silently, and beside him Charlie nearly beams at them. Obviously that was the right thing to admit to. "So, yeah. I guess. Cas sucked at hiding he was interested, but like I said. He wasn't making an issue of it, and the morning was about Dad, not about that. I mean, he tucked Dad in like he was a kid, talked shop with the pastor. . ."

Sam shifts back into motion again, and Dean's eyes immediately flick to his brother, narrowing, assessing the change in his posture carefully and his suddenly clipped words, the two of them attuned to each other's tells. It had been Dean who taught Sam how to play poker, after all.

"So when you went into the parking lot, you weren't expecting Doctor Novak to follow you." It's a simple question, and Dean answers it simply, Sam's changed position leaving him with the jury in his peripheral view now.

"No."

"And you weren't expecting to encounter Mr. Hardey, Mr. Etheridge. . ."

Dean's response is more emphatic this time, as he interrupts. He'd probably make it more colorful too if he wasn't aware of the Judge a few feet away. "No."

"You didn't arrange to meet them. . ."

"No! Why the hell would I arrange to meet them?"

Sam sucks in a breath softly, steeling himself as he turns to face his brother again. "Can you tell the jury what you were thinking, then, on the morning of June 20th when you encountered them in the parking lot?"

Dean's knows where this is going, and he's known it all along. It doesn't make it any easier to spit out, though. Sam's eyes are huge, pleading with him to understand that this isn't him, that this is his job, that they have to do this, but all he can see is his overgrown little brother. His surrogate family, all of them that are still in Kansas, are sitting in the first row staring at him. His fifth grade teacher scowls at him from the center of the courtroom. Crowley with one foot out in the aisle, leaned back in his place on the bench with both hands folded over the top of his cane. Charlie, trying to make herself more obvious without moving, their plan for him to tell this crap to her still there as an open invitation. And Castiel, so still he doesn't appear to be breathing, blue eyes wounded already, hands clamped on the edge of the table before him as if to keep himself from reaching out to Dean.

"Mr. Winchester, you need to answer the que. . ." Rufus Turner's brusque voice is tempered, treating him like a skittish victim, and that pisses Dean off more than anything.

"I was thinking that if those sons of bitches were going to rape me again, they were going to have to fucking kill me this time." Language be damned. They want the whole truth? That's the whole fucking truth.

Turner's remonstration for his language rolls off him; he's tense in his seat, expecting Sam's next question, the gentle prodding for him to explain, for him to air some of the most demeaning moments of his life to this whole damn room, and he doesn't know what to do with his hands. He sucks at this crap. Sharing and caring bullshit, he's always sucked at it.

Looking at Charlie means looking at Cas, and he can't, any more than he can look Sam in the eyes right now. He just. . . can't. Dean knows he sounds angry, that they didn't want him angry, but he's going to make them listen to him, just this once. So he turns slightly, scouring the jury, this group of people who were picked out to judge him just as much as they were Cas. A dozen complete strangers who've been fed bullshit about him being a slut, or a whore, a mindless Omega panting after a knot. . . whatever those assholes had come up with to excuse themselves.

"I was thirteen. A kid. Spent my whole life thinking I'd grow up to be an Alpha like my dad. I only found out I was an Omega like a week before that, and the entire damn town knew right away because I was at school when I started to feel sick and feverish. You know what I was 'thinking' when they jumped me in the parking lot, the day my Dad died?"

Dean drags a hand over his mouth, unconsciously rubbing his jaw, green eyes shining with unshed tears and his entire body rigid, his voice low and rough as he focuses first on the woman he made laugh earlier, a kindergarten-teacher type with dark hair, the kind of pretty Beta he'd have tried to pick up before Cas. "I was thinking how Nate Hardey broke my jaw because I kept trying to bite him."

His eyes slide to the man beside her—an Alpha, blonde, typical Kansas boy. "How even when I was a skinny kid it apparently took five of them, two to hold me down while they took turns knotting me, one behind me, one in front of me, and then one catcalling and cheering on the others and jerking off, waiting and keeping an eye out. That was Roy."

A matronly African-American woman sits in the front row, her eyes fathomless and sad as she watches him watch her. "About how bad it hurt when they didn't want to wait, how it felt like they were tearing me in two because they pulled out before their knots went down, and how once I couldn't bite any more they didn't care about the fact that I was trying not to throw up or yell when they shoved down my throat."

He can't do it anymore. Closing his eyes, he shuts them all out, and the words are hollow and emotionless. "I was thinking about how I don't even remember any more all the times the fact that I wasn't willing meant jack to the people around me who just wanted to get off. But I remember that first time." Dean's laugh is bitter, broken, and humorless. "My first time. Lost my virginity behind the bleachers at the stadium, where they dragged me when I was waiting for my little brother to get out of his study date for a science fair thing. I remember thinking when I was bleeding out how much I didn't want to die, and leave him like Mom did. How I couldn't pass out, even though I wanted to check out and not feel it anymore, because I was pretty sure I was dying. Then how embarrassed I was that Ellen and Bobby had to see me like that, when they got there first after the campus cop, while they were loading me into the ambulance."

He can't look over there. He doesn't want to. He knows Ellen remembers—knows she would have happily used that shotgun if they hadn't left the Roadhouse that night.

"I spent two weeks in the hospital eating through a straw, and months healing." It destroyed them financially, and they'd never been well-off to begin with. It tore his father and Bobby's friendship apart, too, sent Bobby packing to Sioux Falls after enough arguments that hushed the moment Dean walked in the room, and ten years later when things went to shit all over again he remembered Bobby hunkering down to tell his younger self that if things ever got bad, if he ever wanted out, he'd always have a safe place to live and a job to go to with him. John took off without them more often, building that obsessive web of information on the wall of their apartment over the garage with every trip. He never looked at his eldest the same way again; it was all too soon after him presenting as Omega for Dean to know if it was him and how he'd turned out, or if it was what was done to him. Whether he was raising Sam because they came second to his father's obsession, because his father trusted Dean to raise Sam right, or because he's the bitch and raising kids is all bitches are good for. "They walked away from it. Not even a slap on the wrist by the cops, or the school."

"So all I could think about when those same guys got me pinned against that car was they were going to have to damn well kill me this time."

The silence in the courtroom is oppressive, and Dean can hear Sam just a few feet away, can hear the thickness in his voice when he finally finds it again after clearing his throat. Sam's never cried pretty. Even as a kid it made his nose run, his face blotchy, sorrow etched itself deep in his features like he was taking on everyone else's pain and making it his own. He didn't cry often, but every time he did Dean felt like a failure as a big brother somehow for not making it better before he reached that.

This time he feels like shit for causing it.

"So when Cas showed up . . ." Sam fumbles, trying to get himself under control, aware that he's gone from Doctor Novak to Cas in the span of an answer, and trying to find the rest of his question. Dean tries to make it easier on him, answering the question before Sam has to finish it.

"Cas saved my life. In more ways than one. But that day showing up like that. . . one way or another I wasn't gonna live through that again." Opening his eyes, Dean licks his lips again, his mouth dry and eyes wet after his confessions, but he's not going to cry over this again. He's done with it. Taking in his little brother in front of him, he shakes his head and tries to comfort him with words.

"Cas took me home. Popped my dislocated shoulder back in, got me patched up, and didn't try and touch me, or ask for anything in return. He slept on his couch that night, gave me the bed. So yeah, Cas is a frikkin' hero. He didn't kill them; stopped once they were down. And yeah, we're together now. He was the first person outside of family and those close as family to ever know what I am, and still give a crap about my feelings outside of how I could make them feel."

At the prosecution table, Victor Henriksen sits with his elbows on the table, fingers steepled at his chin and eyes watching Dean carefully. He doesn't look away as Sam turns to him, voice rough as he curtly tells him "Your witness," clearly reluctant to walk away with his brother still on the stand, angled to look at Henriksen while still between the lawyer and Dean.

In a day or so, there's a strong possibility he'll be hearing this from the other side, he'll be the one asking these questions, putting Dean through this. Green eyes stare him down warily, guarded, Dean's jaw set and his shoulders square, but there's the sense that he's waiting for a physical blow and refusing to back down from it.

Henriksen is a prosecutor. When he goes up against someone on the witness stand, they're up there for him to prove someone guilty, or they're hiding something to keep a criminal out of jail. This is the rare instance of the victim being on the defense's side, without it being an obvious abuse situation. He didn't take this job to grill any victims and try to tear them down. That's what scum defense lawyers like Crowley do to victims: it's what the Brit intends to do to Dean at Henriksen's next trial, he knows it. But Dean isn't the one he has on trial.

There'll be another witness after this. He can address the only relevant questions there.

"The prosecution has no further questions for this witness."

Rufus Turner banging the gavel down on the sounding block makes Dean flinch in surprise as he turns, but the judge is looking to the bailiff. "We'll take a ten minute recess before the next witness. . ."

The scrape of a chair across the room is loud, and Dean's barely on his feet, the words are still falling from the Judge's lips, when Castiel is there. Sam hasn't had a chance to move, the jury hasn't finished shuffling out, but Dean finds himself rocked back on his heels, and Cas coiled around him. "Woah. Hey. Cas. . . it's okay. I'm okay now."

Castiel's cheek against Dean's neck is wet, the tears Dean never let himself turn to see Cas shed obvious now. He curls his hand along the back of Cas's neck, his other hand bunching into the back of Cas's shirt beneath his suit jacket is keeping him there for Dean, or making sure Cas doesn't pull away until he's ready himself. Dean couldn't say. They're probably spitting on the stereotypical Alpha/Omega dynamic in public again, though, as Dean shelters Cas from the watching eyes of the jury as they get to their feet, murmuring meaningless comfort into his hair as he rests his head against the top of Cas's. Cas's arms around him are almost bruising, but it's Dean who's dry eyed and collected, comforting Castiel.

On the bench at the front of the courtroom, Ellen has her arm slung around Jo's shoulders, the blonde turned in towards her mother as Ellen strokes a hand over her hair soothingly. Gabriel looks furious, as if he's reconsidering having settled for embarrassment and threats with Hardey, and is watching what he can see of his own little brother. Ash looks incredibly uncomfortable, trying to decide if he should be there when he can't just give Dean a beer and tell him 'that sucks,' and like he's considering joining Gabriel to cover up some kind of violent revenge for him. Charlie and Sam look like they're both waiting in line for a turn to hug him or something. But everyone, his entire damn family, is looking like they're about to cry.

"Shit, guys. I'm fine. It's okay. Stop looking at me like. . . like I died or something." Movement at the corner of his eye catches his attention, and he wonders when Henriksen turns to face the room what is running through Crowley's head when the two attorneys lock gazes for a moment.

He doesn't have time to consider it. Blue eyes are suddenly the only thing he can really see, Castiel's hands cupped to his cheeks, fingers skating the line of his jaw as if he expects to feel the wires and pins that once reshaped it, forehead resting against his own. "I'm sorry, Dean. You shouldn't have had to. . ."

He loses all words, and after a moment Dean scowls, pulling Cas's hand off of his face and linking their fingers together. Turning, he hauls Cas with him towards the defense table, Sam trailing them like a lost duckling as Dean addresses his family. "If you guys sit there throwing pitying looks at me, I am going to kick your ass. Okay? This is just. . ."

It's just the way it is. The way it always has been. And with four months as Alastair's property, he can't even claim it's the worst thing that ever happened to him, not anymore. It was just the most physically violent. Castiel being his boyfriend, or mate, or whatever, doesn't change the shit that happened before. And even if it never happens again to him, even if by some miracle he shakes the nightmares forever, it'll still be there in the background because it's not just him.

Dean doesn't catch the teary eyed determined look Sam shoots Charlie, or her slow nod of understanding as she worries her lower lip between her teeth. Even if he had, he wouldn't know the significance of it, yet.


	30. Chapter 30

Castiel is far from alright.

It's comforting to see Dean in the room with him now, wedged between Gabriel and Jo on the bench, slinging his arm around the young Beta's shoulder and pulling her into a one-armed hug that ends with him pressing a kiss to her forehead. He has no delusions that Dean is as okay as he's pretending, but the big brother instinct is ingrained, the need to make sure others aren't worrying about him.

But it won't work. Castiel worries regardless. Ellen smoothes a hand over Dean's shoulder from the other side of Jo, her eyes forward, and Cas knows he's not the only one. He is perpetually amazed by how strong Dean truly is, though, and today has only reaffirmed that for everyone.

Sam, for his part, has adopted a very familiar posture—Castiel has seen enough young soldiers steeling themselves for battle to recognize the poise, the grimly determined look in his lawyer's eyes.

"Can you describe for the jury the events at The Roadhouse on the night of June 19th?"

They aren't on the same page, the way Sam and Dean clearly were, but they understand each other's motivations here just as they did in the interrogation room of the sheriff's office. This isn't about Castiel, regardless of who is on trial; this is for Dean.

"I was in a booth across the room when a man I now know as Nathan Hardey began harassing Dean at the bar." He's tense again, straight backed and nervous, fingers once more bunching in the fabric of his slacks over his knees as they had been in the hallway before, when Dean sat with him and coaxed him into relaxing, but his voice is steady and his chin high and for now that will have to suffice. "Dean rebuffed his advances, it became briefly physical, and then he returned to his seat at the bar and Hardey was dismissed from the premises by the bar owner."

He doesn't realize Sam is waiting for more from him until he's prompted. "How would you characterize the harassment?"

"…Loud? Vulgar. I was sitting in the corner but was able to hear the entire interaction." There's a pause, where Sam is looking at him like he's being deliberately stubborn, before Castiel continues. "Hardey was using gendered slurs, and demanding Dean 'ride' him." Castiel's fingers twist in the fabric again, his irritation showing now. "When Dean dismissed him, Hardey called him a bitch, and a slut, and crudely brought up what I now know was his sexual assault of Dean when he was a child. At which point, Dean held him at arm's length by the throat until Hardey was thrown out by the Harvelles, and escorted out by his friends, including Roy Etheridge."

"But you kept your seat?"

Castiel can't tell if Sam is saying this for the jury, if he's establishing Castiel's ability to maintain his temper, or if he's asking Cas why he didn't interfere earlier, why he didn't stop everything before it came to the parking lot the next day. "Dean didn't need my help, he was in control of the situation."

"Purchasing Dean a drink wasn't a sexual advance, result of identification of him as your mate, or because he was an Omega?"

"Objection." Henriksen raises his pen slightly, and it's the first time Castiel's attention has shifted to him since he took the stand. "Leading the witness."

"Sustained." Judge Turner sounds bored, and that's deeply unsettling for Castiel; he's losing their interest, and just ten minutes earlier they were all released on recess because Dean had jurors in tears. "Mr. Winchester, you're not here to provide testimony. You want your client to say something, he's going to need to open his mouth and say it himself."

This is more nerve-wracking than Dean tossing him into meeting Sam at breakfast without any warning to either of them. He's being interrogated again, and this time with an audience. He _isn't_ as charming as Dean; he never has been, and likely never will be. There's always been a part of him that was deeply unsettled by being put in the spotlight of anything. It takes him time to be comfortable around new people, and he's still on fairly uncertain terms with Sam, let alone this room of people here to judge him.

Sam breathes out slowly, and paces back towards the defense table, asking the question as he does, Castiel tracking him with his eyes. "Why did you buy Dean a drink, Castiel?"

Dean is watching him from the bench with one eyebrow arched slightly, and he shifts in his seat, knees wide, elbows braced, tie loosened slightly, and a look of interest in his eyes as if he's waiting for Cas's answer.

Castiel doesn't suspect that he's just been deliberately passed off from one Winchester to the other, visually, but Charlie congratulates Sam with a subtle thumbs up as he passes the table. People should make a habit of listening to her more often. Castiel's closed-lipped to all of them but Dean, and the only way they're getting him to open up is to have him talk to his boyfriend. She's got no problem encouraging Sam to cruise back this direction for any question they need more detail for. Cas's gaze will be drawn magnetically towards Dean either way.

"He looked as if he was having a bad day, even before Hardey approached him." Castiel replies, hand rubbing the back of his neck, his fidgeting suddenly released as he shrugs faintly awkwardly at Dean. He looks nervous and faintly sheepish, but he's less wooden and they need the jury to see that. "I was. . . I didn't expect him to come drink with me, I don't just buy people drinks at bars, or pick people up. I'm not. . . it's not anything I've ever been interested in doing before Dean. I knew he was an Omega, because of the men bothering him, but he handled himself capably, and made the bartender smile and laugh though he was clearly miserable. I just wanted to do something small, because my day was terrible too."

Castiel glances away, his next words taking on a faintly confessional air. "And I assumed if I bought him a drink and sent Jo back to the bar for it, her presence would hinder Hardey being able to harass Dean. And I thought if it continued, and Jo became embroiled in it, her mother would as well and Hardey and possibly his friends would be kicked out of the bar before they could be more trouble."

He hadn't met Dean, but he played the Harvelles to protect a stranger. He's not sure how the jury is going to take that, let alone the Harvelle women. . . or Dean. He's pretty sure his statement would be better received if he'd stopped before admitting this, but he swore to tell the _whole_truth.

He'd fallen into bed at his apartment quietly proud that he'd helped the beautiful stranger across the bar, and tried not to question why green eyes and broad shoulders factored into his sleep that night. What little he could remember of the sexual nature of the dream left him faintly uncomfortable the next morning.

Where he ran into Dean again shortly into his shift, leaving him dumbstruck in the doorway until Dean noticed him. Thankfully, Sam's questions skirt these things, and a tightness in his chest eases faintly as he realizes he won't have to reveal that. He's not sure how it could have been relevant, anyway. Dean is watching him with a knowing glint in his tired, lightly bloodshot eyes, though, and Cas wonders if he's going to be unofficially cross-examined by his mate later.

His answers match Dean's, he knows: the harassment at the bar, their day at the hospital, the attack in the parking lot, the slurs keyed into the car. He establishes his medical credentials in brisk terms when challenged by the prosecution, and then clinically details every one of Dean's injuries, tense anger coloring his words and loosening his tongue. Sam is obviously winding down when he inadvertently throws Castiel off again, pacing back to the defense table and asking a question designed to undermine Etheridge's claims. "So like Dean, you were unaware that he was your mate until after the confrontation?"

Cas freezes, glancing at Dean, blue eyes begging him for forgiveness for this next confession. He knows it plays into the prosecution's argument, knows that before this morning this would have made Dean doubt him; Dean, who was already so concerned that Cas 'shouldn't want him' and was being 'drugged.' He knows that this is the exact opposite of the answer Sam was looking for, by asking this question. ". . . I knew right away, when we met the hospital. As soon as he shook my hand."

Dean's eyebrows draw together, a furrow between them, as if he's prepared to deny that. "Dean uses scent blocking soaps, and is very careful about protecting himself, and it _is_ effective. But releaser pheromones are independent of sex pheromones. . . they trigger cutaneously as well as on an olfactory level. . ."

Sam is giving him a look that Castiel can't begin to decipher, Charlie is clearly listening raptly though he doubts she planned on him going 'Discovery Channel' in the middle of his court case, and he lost Dean to wariness and confusion a few seconds back. "Skin. Mating pheromones are conveyed through the skin itself. It's part of why mates draw comfort from touch, and the reestablishment of that bond. It's also why so many of our fairytales have 'true love's first kiss,' or the touch of a hand at a dance and suddenly both parties know they're intended for each other. There's usually a science behind the 'magic' we adopt across cultures."

"I knew when Dean touched me that he was my mate. I'd never felt anything. . ." He has no words to describe it; he'd barely ever been attracted to another before Dean.

Dean sees this life of Alphas and Omegas like a horror story. Until now, it's given him nothing but pain. When Dean thinks of the chemistry behind it, he thinks of lack of control, of violence, of being used, and of being slave to his own physiology and to other people's intentions for him. Castiel sees them being attuned to each other so instinctively that it's as if God touched them both, destined them for each other and blessed them. Dean thinks of knotting as being owned, dominated, trapped, and he remembers torture and rape and abuse and pain. For Castiel, who has only ever had sex with Dean, it's about shared pleasure, the extended intimacy of curling himself around Dean, being able to hold him, feel him; it's a time when they're at ease and everything is _right_.

It's the privilege of Alphas to see the fairytale, he knows. The fairytale falls apart as soon as you look at how Omegas are treated. Dean had any romantic notions ripped away from him violently, and way too young. He wishes he could give that to Dean—he may spend the rest of his life trying to.

"Could that reaction have caused a violent response?" Sam is adjusting his line of questioning to treat Castiel as a physician rather than the defendant again, since Castiel put them in that situation, but he manages it seamlessly, without losing step in front of the jury. Later on he may chew Castiel out for not sharing that bit of information during their brief time preparing for the trial together, but neither of them had foreseen Etheridge feeding the ownership and mate line to the jury.

Castiel shakes his head, and in many ways this is easier; he can talk about the science behind it, and it's professional. It's familiar. Judge Turner indicated that Castiel would need to talk, and this he can explain, the opportunity to refute something that's been infuriating him this entire trial.

"The stereotypical violent claiming response that the witnesses have been trying to use to excuse their behavior or explain mine is triggered by sex pheromones. They indicate arousal, fertility, and create excitement in receptive potential sexual partners. It's most prevalent in Heats, and they're scent-based . . . so they'd be blocked or hindered by the soaps Dean uses. And as Dean said, he was there grieving over losing his father. He wasn't aroused, or at all interested in sex at the time, and I _sincerely_ doubt when he was thirteen and being violently attacked he was either."

He's nervous again, looking at Dean, trying to read his reactions to all of this and he can't. Dean's too far away, too guarded. So he focuses instead on Sam, blocking out the courtroom around him entirely, falling into the familiarity of his work farther. "But even then, in normal circumstances, it doesn't override conscious decision—we're ruled by our free will, not by our responses to chemical stimuli. All those cues do to a receptive Alpha is lower inhibitions, but using that to excuse rape and abuse is like saying anyone who has a beer or two is given free rein to rape or abuse whomever they chose; Alpha, Beta, or Omega, man or woman."

"So in your _medical opinion_, Doctor Novak." Sam may be a hell of a lawyer, but there's still something there that's the smug know-it-all little brother Dean remembers fondly. "Were their behaviors _or_ yours dictated by Dean being an Omega?"

"_No._ They _chose_ to attack Dean, because they held no regard for him outside of how they could use him sexually. I_chose_ to intervene, because even in the short span of a day I could tell that Dean was a remarkable human being, and didn't deserve that. I was more concerned with taking care of him than I was sleeping with him. I spent that day watching him struggle with becoming an orphan, with loss and pain, and I was drawn to Dean's bravery, his personality, his independence, how obviously he cared about his family. I fell in love with Dean's _spirit_not his designation."

With that final declaration, Castiel is exhausted, suddenly weary beyond his own comprehension as if the outpouring of remarks was physically taxing, rather than merely emotionally. Dean has been watching him, and he knows this answer was _significant_, not just for the court case, but for his future. Now he's waiting for two verdicts: one on his freedom, and one for his happiness.

"No further questions, your Honor."

Cas doesn't have time to breathe out in relief, before Henriksen is in front of him, planted and firm, where Sam paced and prowled. There is no wandering gaze here, no looking past him to Dean or to Sam and Charlie for comfort, or to see how his responses are working.

Victor Henriksen's job is to put criminals in jail, and Castiel broke the law. Anything less than a dedicated attempt to prove that, and sway the jury, is him failing to do the job they brought him in to do, and would have been just as bad as Etheridge's uncle deliberately doing a half-assed job prosecuting his nephew as the county's DA.

"Doctor Novak, would you say you have a history of vigilante behavior?"

"Objection." Sam's ready for this, throwing out his first objection before he's reseated himself at the defense table. "Badgering the witness."

"I could rephrase it as 'do you have a history of breaking every rule and law you think doesn't apply to you,' but it isn't going to make it sound any better." Henriksen retorts without turning away from Castiel, but he's put the statement out there already, put it back into the minds of the jurors and calling back to his opening statements. "We'll revisit that. Doctor Novak. . ." Henriksen paces to the prosecutor's table, picks up a stack of folders, plucking one from the stack and handing it to Castiel without flourish or embellishment. "Can you read that first title for me, Doctor."

Castiel opens the paper, glancing at the first page. He's unsurprised but wooden as he reads the words before him. "Discharge under less than honorable conditions from the Armed Forces of the United States of America."

"And I assume you recognize the document in front of you?"

Castiel nods, and Henriksen speaks without moving away. "Let the court record show that the witness gave an affirmative." Glancing at the jury, he gestures at the papers in Castiel's hands, and to Castiel himself. "This is the DD214, or discharge papers from the United States Army, for Lieutenant Castiel Novak, a US Army Chaplain, indicating his discharge. . . appeals by a Captain Milton upgraded it to 'less than honorable,' instead of 'dishonorable,' or else Doctor Novak would be the military equivalent of a felon and could have been court martialed and sentenced to federal prison. The prosecution enters them into record now. Doctor Novak, can you read for the jury the highlighted portions on the second page, please."

Lifting the paper, his shoulders slumping minutely, Castiel is toneless: from his seat on the bench, Dean leans forward to rest his arms on the short wall, frowning in concern. "Lt. Novak willfully disobeyed orders, and violated US Army Regulations and Geneva Convention articles regarding the required noncombatant status of US Army Chaplains that protects all medical and spiritual personnel . . ." His eyes scan down the page to the next highlighted portion, forehead knitted and jaw tight. "Lt. Novak chose to stay with detained soldiers rather than report back to his platoon. He was directly responsible for the death of two enemy combatants—in debriefing, Lt. Novak indicated he broke the neck of one enemy soldier, and killed another in hand-to-hand combat."

Henriksen is still planted right in front of him when Castiel raises his eyes from the paper, prepared to defend his actions. "I was saving the soldiers under my care."

"I'm sure you were, Doctor." Henriksen isn't being patronizing, but there's a dismissive note to his voice nonetheless. It's Sam's job to coax the story out of his witness—Henriksen is presenting facts. Handing the next folder to Castiel, he directs his attention to it, and every subsequent piece of evidence builds a picture, without giving Castiel the opportunity to expand on his personal justifications.

Administrative documentation from the hospital, signed by Zachariah, indicating his manipulation of policy to benefit patients he'd seen as needy.

An eight year old incident report from the Pontiac, Illinois police department, the highlighted portion that Castiel reads through his teeth indicating Cas's involvement in a brawl, but declaring that no charges were filed, the fight was ended before the arrival of authorities, and very little information was given to the police by those involved. Gabriel shifts guiltily in his seat and ignores Dean's questioning look.

Each time, each indication of him flaunting authority and bending rules to the breaking point, Henriksen has Castiel himself read aloud, has _him_present it to the jury, and it's painful and grueling just to watch Castiel become more withdrawn again.

The final folder Henriksen keeps in his own hands, offering a detailed account of the injuries to Hardey and Etheridge at Castiel's hands, Zachariah's flare for the dramatic somehow made far more serious when given in Henriksen's even tones. When he finally looks up from the medical report, he speaks slowly, clearly, for the benefit of the jury. "Once again, a situation in which Doctor Novak could have involved the authorities, but instead chose to take matters into his own hands. I assume you took the Hippocratic Oath upon becoming a physician?"

It's a question, and Castiel agrees quietly.

"'First, do no harm.' Your oaths as a chaplain, to be a noncombatant. Your vows as a Jesuit priest; poverty, chastity and _obedience_to_,_among other things, Commandments that are pretty clear about killing_._State and federal laws that are applicable to every citizen. You've done a great deal of harm for a doctor and a priest, Doctor Novak, and have ignored any law, order or regulation that you could personally justify dismissing."

The folders in Castiel's hands, a stack of his transgressions, is like millstone around his neck, dragging him down. After a long moment, looking at the man before him, Henriksen turns and inclines his head slightly to Rufus Turner. "No further questions, your honor."

Sam is on his feet, hands planted on the table before him, his words exploding into the courtroom as if they'd been tightly compressed throughout Henriksen's cross-examination. "Request for redirect."

Judge Turner gestures at Castiel magnanimously, and Sam paces across the courtroom toward his client, firing off his first question. "Doctor Novak, why didn't you go back into the hospital to call the authorities?"

Castiel's head rises again, eyes refocusing on Sam, a faint questioning note to his tone as if he's surprised he's still being questioned, or as if he thought the answer was obvious. "I thought if I went inside, they could get Dean into one of the cars in the lot before the hospital security showed up. He was outnumbered and being hurt."

"So you were worried they'd drag him away, the way we now know they did when he was a teenager."

Castiel nods, but Sam is already moving on, clasping his hands behind him to keep him from gesturing as he paces. "The incident report from Illinois, why were no charges filed?"

Castiel glances past Sam to Gabriel, but the opportunity to explain himself, even briefly, is quickly invigorating him. "Because it was between family, at a funeral for one of our brothers. Two of my elder brothers got into a physical fight after the service. I threw a punch at one of my brothers, but was pulled out of it by another. The fight was over by the time the police were called by the funeral director, and there was no damage to property and no lasting injuries."

Well that explains why every time Dean's heard about Jimmy's funeral, there's been a sense of something unspoken, before Cas ducked out on them all again. There's a story there that Dean's pretty sure he needs to hear someday, but Sam doesn't linger on the report. "Why did you go against hospital policy?"

"Because my superior, Doctor Adler, proscribes more expensive procedures to patients than are strictly required by their conditions, in order to ensure the hospital's profitability."

The questions continue, and like Henriksen Sam doesn't linger on any long this time, each response a counter attack rather than an excuse, with Sam relying on Castiel's short factual responses instead of trying to coax stories out of him. He's read the reports, he's done the research, but by letting Henriksen be the one to open these lines of question, he gets to treat them as off-topic, dismissible and irrelevant, like an obvious and easily dismantled ploy of the prosecution.

It's not until Sam is back on his military file that Castiel's composure cracks.

"How were the soldiers being treated, while they were prisoners of war?"

Castiel places the folders in his lap onto the wall before him, looking away, eyes unfocused. "By the end, they were being abused, interrogated, starved and dehydrated while I was being fed and given water in front of them, which was part of their psychological torture." And obviously Castiel's as well, though Dean doesn't interrupt to say that aloud. Being treated well while forced to watch your friends suffer. . . Cas wouldn't have taken that well. Dean knows he wouldn't, either.

Sam's voice softens, and with it he encourages the jury to listen carefully to these responses. "How long between their capture and escape were you there with them?"

Castiel swallows, his voice hoarse. "Forty days."

Sam summarizes for the jury, his voice quiet, hazel eyes searching their faces. "Over a month. The records indicate you were hiding your food to share with them, giving them your water, and treating their injuries every night on top of ministering to them as a chaplain. According to Captain Milton's report you were dehydrated and malnourished yourself, when examined by military medical doctors."

Castiel doesn't reply until he's given another question, but Sam was expecting that this time. He lets that silence linger a moment, counting on Castiel's solemn nature. His next question is open-ended; he needs Castiel to share this, needs to dismantle the charge against him of having killed two enemy combatants. "Can you tell us about the day you escaped?"

"They killed one of our soldiers. I said a prayer over her body, before they dumped it into an unmarked grave." Castiel lets out a shuddering breath, raising his chin, and turns to speak to Sam's profile, anger and old grief painted across his face. "I believe she was assaulted prior to her death. Another soldier was seriously injured when he struggled, after finding out she'd been killed, and they injured him and then selected him for torture and interrogation. My knowledge of combat medicine and treatment of injuries was limited to what I had observed administering as a chaplain alongside Army doctors. I wasn't going to be able to save him, either."

"So you orchestrated a prison break. And you carried the injured soldier out; saved his life and the lives of three other soldiers." Sam's voice is quiet, and though he's facing the jury it's obvious he's comforting Castiel, reminding him of what his actions accomplished. "Treating their injuries, and the death of that soldier, was that part of why you entered medicine, after being discharged?"

Castiel nods, clears his throat, and speaks for the record. "Yes."

He hadn't been able to do enough for them. He'd struggled with helping the injured every night after they were returned to their cells, and then returned home just in time to stand by unable to do anything to help while Jimmy died. Taking confessions, offering a vague semblance of peace, it wasn't enough. His next move after leaving the clergy and being discharged from the military had seemed so clear.

"Experience that came into play again, when you helped Dean. When you intervened to save him as well, ending the fight and treating his injuries."

Drawing the conclusion back to Dean, Sam turns away from the jury and offers Castiel a look of sympathy and understanding that he's not entirely certain he deserves.

"The defense rests, your Honor."

xXx

Dean isn't paying attention during the closing arguments. He probably should be, but he knows their points now. He tunes out about when Sam begins reiterating for the jury what those assholes did to him—he doesn't need to hear it, he lived it, and he's had enough reminders for a lifetime in just the last couple of weeks alone. Besides, if Sam gets all teary-eyed again he's going to do or say something stupid and throw him off. Right now, if they need to see him as the _victim_ then he guesses that's what he is.

So he does what he figures he can get away with. Sliding to the edge of his seat, Dean reaches across the short wall between him and Castiel, where he sits rigidly at the defense table, and slides a comforting hand onto his boyfriend's shoulder.

The reaction is instantaneous. Castiel clings to his hand like it's a lifeline, lacing their fingers together tightly without turning. Dean can feel the shudder as Castiel releases his trapped breath, bowing his head as Sam continues. He can't offer much more than this, not while they're stuck in their respective chairs, but it's more than Cas has had this entire trial. So he folds his other arm along the top of the divider between them, rests his forehead against his wrist, and closes his eyes, letting Cas hold on to his hand and hanging on just as tightly.

Just this morning he found Cas sleeping on the couch, partly as some sort of continuing self-punishment for thinking about taking the deal, staying up all hours obsessing over the last person to screw Dean over that way. Dean told Cas he loved him (not in so many words, but it works for them) and learned his father murdered his tormenter. They met for lunch, then he was confronted by his rapist, then his attempt to start a fight was cut short, he relived the assault in front of however the hell many people fit in this room, and he watched Castiel take verbal blows to drag his own self-image down like he was standing in front of a firing squad.

Dean tries to tune the rest of the courtroom out, tries to ignore the roughness of tears in his brother's voice and the hand on his back from Ellen, and he's just going to be there for Cas and be as okay as he has to be, for everyone else to be okay.

Overall, even with the few high points. . . it's been really shitty day. His testimony left him feeling ripped open, raw and exposed, and he just needs people not to _look_ at him that way. There's no relief of confession, he just feels more like a freak than ever with so many eyes on him. The idea of doing this again at another trial, having Crowley go on to call him a whore and a liar, leaves him nauseated just thinking about it.

He doesn't realize the jury's been released until Castiel standing drags him to his feet as well, while Judge Turner leaves the bench. Much of the crowd filters out, and Dean turns a questioning look to his brother as he approaches the table. "Now what?"

"Now we wait for a knock." Sam shrugs, pulling out his chair at the defense table and turning it to face his family.

"The waiting sucks." Charlie agrees, plopping herself back down in her seat and dragging her laptop case up onto the table. "And if they go past courthouse hours, we go home, come back, and wait again tomorrow. Pretty much sign your life over to this courtroom until the jury figures out what to do with you."

"So, would you say 'the waiting is the hardest part?'" Gabriel drawls, kicking his feet up to rest on the wall before him, and Dean stops flexing feeling back into his fingers to point a warning at him, falling into his old routines, back to the show.

"If you start singing Tom Petty in a courtroom I'm going to gag you."

Gabriel blows him a kiss sardonically, but the intended audience for their banter is ignoring them. While Jo is handing her mother her phone to call and update Bobby, while Ash is leaning over the half wall to ask what Charlie is up to on the computer, while Sam checks for messages from Jess on his phone, and while nervous energy seems to be spurring each of his family into doing _something_to make the wait not oppressive and terrifying, Castiel has turned his chair and reseated himself, elbow braced on the half wall between Gabriel's sneakers and Dean's arm as his thumb rubs slow circles onto his temple, head bowed. Gabriel jabs the toe of his shoe into his brother's shoulder to get his attention. "You did fine, Cassie. It's going to be okay."

When Castiel gives a noncommittal grunt in response, Dean leans forward to rest his chin on the wall again, the angle letting him see Castiel's face. There's really no privacy here to talk. . . regardless of how people are bustling, he knows they're still the focus; it's _his_ family after all, they're all experienced eavesdroppers and snoops. But Castiel is watching him back through slitted eyes and the cage of his lashes, head braced on his hand, waiting for Dean to bring them back to the questioning. Dean smirks instead and shakes his head slightly, addressing it in his own way.

"This is a really shitty 'fairytale' you got going here, Cas."

"I wasn't envisioning a trial out of it." Castiel admits quietly after a moment, letting himself be coaxed into responding in kind. "Or that it would end in jail time."

Dean's reassuring grin creases the corners of his eyes, and it may be strained and hard to maintain, but it's beautiful. "Who said it'd 'end' with jail time? I'm a crappy pen pal, but I'd give great conjugal visits. Could be hot." Castiel huffs once in amusement despite himself, and Dean jostles his elbow gently, heartened by the reaction. "Besides, you'd be in for what? Six months? A year or two? After the shit you've done for me, Cas, pretty sure I can wait."

Straightening slowly, Castiel blinks at Dean, who props his head on his fist now to keep them on-level, cocking an eyebrow at him questioningly.

"Doing the creepy staring thing again, dude." Dean teases him softly.

The next time Castiel says "I do" in front of a judge, outside of these trials, it won't be because he's being sworn in as a witness. He wants Dean to be with him, repeating it back. He'd rather do it at a church, but considering his religion's perspective on Dean's existence, and the small matter that he's acting against his vows just being with Dean without a papal decree, he isn't clinging to that romantic notion too tightly.

They've known each other so short a time and already he can't imagine his life without Dean in it. Dean's testimony made it clear how close he'd come to never meeting Dean at all, and if he'd come out of that hospital late from his shift he could have lost him the day he met him. . . the thought's devastating.

Convention be damned, he doesn't want a 'mate,' or a 'boyfriend,' he wants Dean as his _husband_and his equal. If what he's seen in this courtroom and in the attitudes and beliefs of these people are an indication of what's socially acceptable, then he's prepared to take a page from Dean's book and tell the world to "bite him."

"You wanna tell me what's going on in that genius brain of yours this time, Cas?"

For now, Castiel shakes his head and Dean doesn't press him for answers, figuring they've both had enough of that for one day. Family folds around them, trying their hardest to offer comfort without seeming to do so, and they all wait for a knock together.

xXx

At 4:45, as if they're racing traffic to get out of the courthouse, jury deliberation ends.

Castiel stands with his chin high, braced for the verdict and aware of the bailiff's location and the sheriff's deputies in the hall. He's holding his breath again, but he can't help it; he's too focused on staying upright, on maintaining the stoic demeanor that used to be so easy for him, as a physician and as a priest at confession. He's certain he'll be handcuffed in front of these people and led away any moment.

The verdict, when it rings out, drops him to his chair like a puppet with his strings cut, punching his breath out harshly all at once. Dean's there so suddenly that Castiel is fairly certain he swung himself over the wall between them to throw an arm around his shoulder, pulling him closer and promising to take him home, to get him out of there.

_Not Guilty._


	31. Chapter 31

The first breath of air outside of the courthouse should taste of freedom, exoneration, maybe even redemption for his past sins. It's like ash and dust, instead, and a dry heat even in the early evening hours that has Castiel's skin prickling beneath layers of his suit, the cold sweat he'd had in the courtroom towards the end making everything uncomfortable, even Dean's arm around him.

Gabriel is planning to drag them out to a celebratory dinner, but is instantly onboard with Ellen's plan for food and free rounds at the Roadhouse, closed for a 'family emergency' anyway considering its staff is all there. Castiel's ridiculously grateful for Dean moments later, when he's drawn to a stop on the courthouse steps by the tightening of Dean's arm around him.

"Why don't you guys go ahead without us? Sorry, I didn't sleep for crap last night." Which isn't precisely true. It was_Cas_who couldn't sleep. Dean's saving face for him though he doesn't need to. Castiel tries not to look confused by that, while Dean is getting them out of socializing.

"You sure?" Jo's doe eyes are pleading, trying to coax Dean out with them all, looking for reassurance that he's alright, but Dean's got decades of experience with the younger sibling ploy. The only person to ever pull that on him and have it work every time is watching Dean from the bottom step, his little brother's eyes sad and sympathetic.

"It's okay, Dean. Take a night off. Get some rest. We can all see you tomorrow." And this is what Dean's escaping; everyone's pitying looks and touches, how they're all ready to jump at any chance to do something for him, the hugs they seem to pass him around for. The man for whom family is everything just needs_away_ from them for a while, to get his head on straight. Sam, Gabriel, even Ash, they slap Castiel on the shoulder, congratulatory for his acquittal, but no one expects weepy confessions out of _him _and no one assumed Castiel would be leaving Dean by himself to go celebrate his freedom. He wonders if he should read into that.

The Impala is too warm, but Dean strips off his jacket and tie, tossing them into the back seat as he adjusts the air conditioner. He's obviously stalling as he unbuttons his dress shirt and shucks it for the t-shirt beneath, waiting for his family to clear the parking lot, soaking in Castiel's comforting silence and the familiar purr of his Baby.

He doesn't want to go home with memories of recovering from the assault cooped up in that place. He doesn't want to have to go to the Roadhouse and pretend everything's alright. He's not up to a celebration, acting like today was in any way some kind of victory for either of them, something to cheer about. He _can't_ face Alastair's timeline on his walls, and the nauseating truths he's still hiding from. Suddenly he hates this town-the memories of it, the garage, the cemetery that has claimed both of his parents, the stadium he can't drive by without feeling sick, the hospital, the knowledge that those guys pretty much own this place with their 'respectable' families and nepotism-secured jobs and lives.

There's gas in the tank and the itch beneath his skin like he needs to get _away._"Wanna get out of here for a while, Cas?"

Castiel assumes the question is rhetorical but he answers anyway, leaning his head against the sun-warmed glass of the window. "Yes. Please."

There's no music this time, no drumming against the steering wheel. The road they hit out of town is as unfamiliar to Cas as most anything but bus routes is, but it doesn't matter their destination so far as Cas is concerned. What's important is how Dean floors it once they're on the open road, the flat Kansas landscape around them making the sky seem to stretch on for miles, the scenery murky gray and green. What's important is how the tension bleeds out of Dean's limbs slowly, how the lines of his forehead slowly unknit as he focuses on driving, taking them on back roads rarely patrolled by the sheriff's department, when most of the population has drifted into cities. A sad old farmhouse surrounded by ash-blighted fields catches Castiel's eye until they speed past it, its paint stripped and faded down to reveal old silvering wood that looks brittle enough crumble at a touch. He knows they're nearing something again when greenhouses are visible in the distance and Dean eases off of the accelerator, watching the side roads carefully as low rolling hills and stubby, twisted trees obscure turn-offs.

Somehow, Castiel isn't surprised when Dean finally cuts the engine somewhere remote and by water, after over an hour of driving. Perry Lake is meticulously maintained-the US Army Corps of Engineers keeps tabs on that as the reservoir central to Lawrence, Topeka and Kansas City, testing various filtration methods and maintaining the dam. Apart from the dam and military recreational areas, though, the rest of it has been left to parklands, to yacht clubs on the north eastern end, to public beaches on the western side, and apparently run-down docks at the bend of the lake the peninsular outcropping overlooking a cove called the Devil's Gap, the no-swimming sign protruding from the water tagged by some delinquent with a sense of humor proving its efficacy. It's very different from the slow-moving gray of Dean's view over the Kansas River, or the bubbling sludge of a creek they found themselves at last time Dean needed to get away, or the artificial blue of the swimming pool at Castiel's old apartment where Dean watched the storm roll in from the hood of his car, but the preference is becoming unmistakable.

"Bobby taught me to fish here." It's a good memory; one of the first good memories after Mary's death. The gruff mechanic wrangled Ellen and Bill into watching baby Sammy and then loaded Dean into the truck for a day trip here. He never really tried to get Dean to talk, but the fishing trip was pretty inspired for giving Dean a safe place where he wasn't required to. Bobby dropped a floppy old cap on top of Dean's head, hauled a cooler and a folding chair out of the back of his truck for himself, and let Dean sit with his toes skimming the water, drinking bottled Coke and watching the lake while Bobby drank a beer and taught him fishing lures and how to cast and about the fish and the lake. Thinking back, Dean's not even sure his own hook was baited most of the time once the lesson ended and the fishing began. That wasn't the point of it.

"Your employer, Bobby? Who. . ." The question's a reminder of how much Castiel doesn't know about him, still, but Dean can tell he's putting together the pieces, stringing together what he knows now from the court case as well. That puts it too close to home on what he's avoiding—he opens the car door instead, shoes crunching over the gravel until he hits the dock. The hollow thump of Cas's footsteps on the wood is his cue to pick up talking again, certain now that he's still listening.

"Kinda became one of my favorite places to go when I was ditching school, too. Topeka's too obvious, and crawling with cops who'd ask you why you weren't in class. Plus there's less to do there than there is in Lawrence, even. Going into Kansas City'd mean not being back in time to pick up Sam." Dean toes his shoes off, dropping to sit on the wood, and tugs his socks off. Taking a moment to roll the bottom of his slacks up, he then fishes his phone and wallet out of his pocket and drops them into a shoe so he can sit comfortably. The water is shockingly cold on his feet, but clean, and he leans back on his hands, tilting his head back to look up at Castiel.

Castiel is frowning down at him in concern, and Dean rolls his eyes, reaches up, and tugs Cas down beside him, sitting shoulder to shoulder. He shakes his head slightly as Cas finally shrugs out of his jacket, folding it neatly like some sort of weirdo before setting it aside with his belongings on top of it, carefully turning his phone off so they won't be disturbed. "What'm I talking to_you_ about skipping school for? You probably signed up for extra credit and stayed late every time you got the chance, right?" They may not have poles, but Dean's still fishing. He wants Castiel talking, wants something else to focus on, pieces of their history that aren't as crappy as what was dragged out in court all day.

"You're not. . . entirely wrong on that." Castiel admits after a moment, opting to fold his legs instead of stick his feet into the water beside Dean's. "Though the Sisters were also fond of detention. And because when we were young they couldn't tell the three of us apart, we often ended up in them together. That's discounting times Jimmy bribed, begged, or paid Emmanuel or me to take detentions for him later." Castiel huffs quietly at some memory, resting his elbows on his knees, eyes crinkling. "As a teenager, Jimmy had a tendency to smart-mouth and speak out of turn, and one detention for that would turn into a week's worth very quickly."

"Sounds like my kind of guy."

Castiel laughs quietly, shrugging one shoulder, but even as he does something lonely and sad steals across his features. "Yes. I think you two would have gotten along. I wish. . ." Castiel wishes that Dean had been able to meet his brother, before he died.

And this is the problem with the crap they've gone through; it somehow manages to spill onto everything, crawling in and tainting memories. Castiel is frowning at the surface of the water quietly, because Catholic school brings it back to his priesthood brings it back to his chaplaincy. Because all of his childhood memories co-star Jimmy in some way, and how no matter how much he learned about medicine, he wasn't able to save the people he most wishes he could have.

Hell, even this place, Dean's escape, he has to keep himself from thinking about what he was running from any time he ditched to come here, or the tragedy that Bobby was trying to help him past that first time.

Or maybe that's just this damn trial, making everything seem grim.

Dean doesn't want to think about it, and he knows Castiel doesn't either. Kissing him seems like the natural progression of that, the distraction for both of them. And it's good—it's _always_ good, the faint prickle of Castiel's 5 o'clock shadow, the way he opens up for Dean, his warmth and taste . . . but Dean's spent hours now kissing Castiel; slow and lazy and sated, or hot and passionate, teeth and tongues and swallowed gasps and moans. Dean knows how Cas kisses—and his hands are still flat against the wooden boards beneath them, and while he's definitely kissing back, he's made no move to take over the kiss the way he usually does. He is a passive participant at best.

Dean breaks their lips apart with a quiet curse and settles heavily back onto the dock beneath them, scowling at the water rather than look at Castiel. He can't have _this_ fall apart too.

"I'm sorry." Castiel murmurs, bringing his hand to Dean's cheek, fingers skimming over his skin as if afraid to touch him, and Dean wishes he'd just decide already.

"Made it pretty clear I didn't want your fucking pity, Cas."

"It's not pity. You resent this." It's such a left-field response that it drags Dean's gaze back to Castiel, to sad blue eyes that watch his hand as he brushes his thumb over Dean's lower lip. "What _I _am to you."

He can't shake it, the look on Dean's face whenever the word _mate_ came up in the trial, the contemptuous way he dismissed the term. How when they met, Dean ran from him after that first kiss. How Dean kissed him to silence, walked away, or changed the topic to keep him from talking about it. Even bringing it up now Dean looks cornered, green eyes guarded, and he turns away from Cas and curls his fingers over the wooden plank at the end of the dock. Cas knows not to press—Dean's silence is sharp-edged but he's thinking about how to respond to that.

If he were blowing it off entirely, they'd be back in the car already.

"I hated you, y'know?" Castiel winces, drawing his knees up and unconsciously withdrawing himself from Dean further. Dean picks at a splinter in the wood absently with his thumbnail, watching a distant boat go by, choppy wake that evens out to gentle lapping by the time it reaches them. "Not _you,_ just the _idea_ of you. I get that I had a pretty fucked up introduction to being Omega, but it wasn't just that. It was shit like. . . as soon as Sam popped a knot, people stopped treating me like I was his guardian, and started talking to him like he was my keeper. He was a gangly fourteen year old kid and I was a legal fucking adult, but he was the Alpha. And hell, that's everyone. That's the 'good' people. That's discounting the assholes that'd rather spit on an Omega male if they couldn't fuck them. These are the ones who'd tell me I was being a good big brother for taking care of Sam like he was my own, and someday I'd make someone a good 'mate,' and then it'd all be just fucking peachy."

"Like I was just waiting around for the right _owner_, y'know? Passed off to another fucking Alpha." The splinter picked free, Dean tosses it into the water, watching it float on the surface of the lake, anything to not have to look at Cas while he's trying to spit this out. What's one more painful confession today, if it means what he has with Cas not being screwed up? "So yeah. That whole 'mate' crap. . . fuck, Cas, even the word's about making us like the 'bitches' and 'breeders' we get called, another reminder that the only thing we're good for is getting knocked up." Omegas. Last in the goddamn line, only important as the opposite of the Alphas. It wasn't enough to start classifying their genders on a frikkin' ranking system, they went first, second, then hopped to the _twenty-forth _letter like they had to make it clear who came in last in the genetic lottery, the Omega symbol itself a pictogram for a hole waiting to be filled.

_Head down, ass up. Only way you're worth the fuck. _A juvenile bully's jeer, cruel and spat against his ear as he fought, the last words he heard as a kid and a virgin. Goddamnit he doesn't need that shit in his head right now. Clenching his hands around the plank beneath him until he can feel the bite of the rough wood against his palms, threatening to leave splinters, Dean schools his expression again and finishes, his voice calmer than he feels.

"I've had the Omega thing used against me before, you _know _that. And even without. . . without those drugs and shit in my system, we all have to put up with the Heats. But the idea that our wiring's fucked up enough that there's someone out there we'll _want_ to belong to,_want_to 'own' us? This. . . this _claiming_ shit like we're luggage or whatever. You gotta admit, with the shit we're put through, that's pretty fucked up, Cas."

Castiel's closed the distance between them again, somewhere between when Dean started and his halfhearted shrug at the end. He curls his fingers around Dean's wrist in lieu of holding his hand, thumb stroking over Dean's skin until Dean relaxes into the touch, leaning back into Cas's side.

"I think I understand." Castiel shrugs, aware of how little that means. How academic it is, ultimately, for an Alpha from a rich family entirely of Alphas, even one as dysfunctional as his happens to be, to try claim he can completely empathize with Dean's story. He can feel sympathy, but to pretend he fully understands it would be a lie. For all that Castiel has gone through in his life, he's always had autonomy over himself. Perhaps too much, given his perpetual disobedience of orders, as today's court case painfully illustrated. "As much as I can."

Dean sighs, then bumps his shoulder against Castiel's companionably, watching the summer sun glint off of the lake as it hangs high in the evening sky in these long summer days that never seem to end when Dean wishes they would. He can tell Castiel is chewing on a thought, still weighing what to say, and it's keeping this from being the comforting moment it should be.

"I don't want to own you." Castiel rumbles, finally, and Dean rolls his eyes, glad the silence is broken but determined to end the conversation so they can just relax.

"Yeah, I figured that part out, Cas. You don't have to defend yourself here, man. You asked and I. . ."

This time, Castiel is most definitely not holding back in kissing him. His hand cups Dean's neck, pulling him in and tipping his head until he's right where Cas wants him. He _needs_ this, the reassurance of them fitting together the way they have since the first kiss. He needed to know Dean still feels this for him, too, but he wasn't fully prepared for the strength of Dean's reaction.

Castiel could have gone to _jail_ today. That could have been it for them—not because Dean didn't mean it when he offered to wait, but because Cas would've had all that time in jail to remember that Dean was the reason he was in there in the first place. Because something could have happened to either of them, during that time. So he pours himself into the kiss, and if Cas is all "brainstem" sex and "limbic system" contentment around him half the time anyway, Dean's determined to light them up like a Christmas tree, arousal and emotion to override the fear and misery of the rest of the day.

Blunt nails scrape over Castiel's scalp before Dean gets a solid grip on his hair, tugging at the root gaining him a low, needy groan from the Alpha beside him that he swallows into the kiss. It's as if the sound is a signal, Dean hooking his other arm around Castiel's waist and hauling him forward until he's got Castiel above him, straddling his legs, blanketing Dean's body with his own as he lays him back onto the planks of wood beneath them. Once this would have terrified Dean instinctively—being pinned by an Alpha, any Alpha. Castiel's been tipped off of Dean and had their positions reverse often enough to know this is a show of trust.

He gentles the kiss slowly, hands running along Dean's sides before pressing to his chest, letting Cas leverage himself up slightly, breaking for air. Dean's lips quirk into a self-satisfied smirk, fingers mussing Castiel's hair up again, other arm bent to pillow his head, and Dean looks completely unconcerned about decency as another boat cruises past on the lake, far from them.

"You interrupted. I wasn't done talking yet."

Castiel's grumble is halfhearted, and Dean knows it. Using the grip on his hair to tilt Cas's head to the side, he nuzzles at the curve of his neck above the collar of his dress shirt, unconsciously noting where he can mark without it showing next time they're in court. Dean nips at that spot before speaking, drawing a surprised hiss out of Cas, the Alpha unconsciously shifting in place atop him. Dean may be pinned, but parts of him are definitely sitting up and taking notice of having something riding _his_ lap again for the first time in a long while.

"Mm. Probably shouldn't have started making out with me, then, if you were in the middle of a conversation. Just saying." But he releases Castiel's hair and folds the other arm behind his head, feet trailing in the water still, laying with his knees bent over the edge of the dock. It's a little awkward, as far as positions go, but it's good. "So go ahead, then. We're already airing out all the skeletons in our closet today I guess."

"Your mixed metaphors are increasingly terrifying. But not inaccurate." Castiel deadpans, pressing a kiss to the jut of Dean's chin and shifting again (Dean bites his lip at the sensation, still smirking) bracing a hand and elbow to the dock and putting them a comfortable speaking distance apart without moving away. Castiel has that faintly pained look that says he's thinking too much again, trying to put something into words or decide if he should say what he's thinking. His eyes catch on the curve of Dean's lip because he can't convince himself to raise his gaze those two crucial inches to have eye contact. "I was saying that I don't want to own you, Dean."

"And I was saying I know that." There's a note of sardonic humor in Dean's voice at repeating himself, as if he's congratulating Castiel for managing to remember something that happened only minutes ago. "Thanks for the recap, Cas. Good talk."

Castiel huffs in exasperation, eyes flicking back to Dean's so he can scowl properly, all bluster but no real annoyance. "You're infuriating."

"Yeah, but you love it." Dean grins, a cocky self-assured expression that Castiel's sure won many a pretty Beta girl over while Dean was convincing the world he was anything but an Omega male, and succeeds at makes Castiel swallow heavily and stare. "No take-backs."

"I wasn't going to take. . ." Castiel sighs, rolling his head back to look at the sky as he sits up without moving away. This is good; being here with Dean, slowly shedding the weight the courtroom drama put on their shoulders. The faintly prickly humor, just on the right side of bickering, feels more natural than the comforting, bolstering support they needed to get through the trial. But he _is_ keeping Cas from being able to speak, even while encouraging him to.

It's a clever avoidance tactic, one that like the kissing is easy for both of them to sink into. But he never doubted Dean was clever. Castiel doesn't know if Dean is hiding something, or hiding himself, or if avoidance is just instinctive now.

"I _like_ this, Dean. I like what we do to each other." He dips in again, laying himself back out over Dean, and kisses the corner of Dean's mouth as he explains his meaning, tilting his head away before Dean can chase his lips down and get something more substantial from him. Dean draws a hand from behind his head, fingers finding Cas's hair again warningly, as if reminding him that Dean could haul him back in for a kiss if he wanted, before his movements turn comforting, fingers mussing his hair lazily. "I like that you make me forget myself when you kiss me. From the very first time, at my apartment. I liked sharing your Heat with you, sharing that_need_. …And I like that being with you feels like _home_."

Dean's watching him, and he can see the twitch of a smirk reshape the curve of Dean's lips, but he keeps going knowing he's probably making a fool out of himself. "I think that's the difference between belonging _to_ someone and belonging _with_ them. And I know I belong with you."

Dean's laugh in response to his solemn declaration catches Cas by surprise, and he nearly tips sideways with it, but it's hard to glare at Dean when he's smiling, particularly when it's the best thing he's seen and heard in weeks. After today, after everything he's had to relive, Cas isn't sure he could begrudge Dean anything that makes him laugh. He falls back on dry humor instead. "You realize this isn't an appropriate response to someone telling you they're in love with you."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't but you're a sap." Dean tells him frankly, still laughing, though his hand squeezing Castiel's shoulder belies the sentiment and takes the sting out of the words.

"I don't know that mocking me is wise. We're surrounded by a lake and you. . ." He shouldn't have said it. He can see the moment the idea takes root in Dean's mind, the wicked cant to Dean's head and sudden spark of a plot, but he doesn't have time to defend himself.

Castiel shouldn't have threatened, even vaguely, to put Dean in the water while he himself was perched precariously on Dean's lap at the edge of a dock. He's supposedly intelligent and strategic, and he should have known better than to. . .

Both hands to Castiel's shoulders as he surges upright, Dean _shoves,_ and Castiel has nowhere to go but off the edge of the hits the water hard, sinking underneath and spluttering cold as he rises, grabbing for the dock with water streaming into his eyes.

Sitting up at the edge of the dock again, laughter ringing out over the water, Dean offers Castiel a hand to pull him back onto the dock, ready to call truce. Their day has been long and neither of them really has the energy to put into this, they're both in the remnants of their courtroom attire, and Cas _was_ trying to have a serious conversation until now. However, Cas thinks Dean sometimes forgets a significant piece of information about him.

Castiel grew up with _nine Alpha brothers _and no parents to make them get along, or reel them in, or make any of them behave. He may be the most restrained of all of them, the most stoic, the least socially adjusted. . . but that just meant his brothers enjoyed giving him hell for it. He's no stranger to fighting dirty. He recognizes a dare when it's thrown, and a challenge. Accepting Dean's extended hand in a firm grip, he clamps his other hand around Dean's opposite bare ankle as soon as Dean tenses himself to pull Cas up.

"Cas, don't you dare you. . . Son of a. . . !" Castiel dives, hauling Dean down into the water with him off-balance and turned about by wrist and ankle. He releases him as soon as he's in the water, trying to get a head-start before Dean gets his bearings, while he's still a mess of flailing limbs entirely too close to Cas for comfort. He's clambered up onto the dock when Dean surfaces, flopping backwards onto the wood and throwing an arm over his eyes to block out the evening sunlight, smug at having won that round.

He hears Dean moments later, puffing and grumbling, haul himself up over the edge of the dock. Eyes closed, secure in the center of the dock, he ignores the patter of water that tells him Dean is standing over him and speaks in his most know-it-all do-gooder formerly-virtuous priest voice.

"The sign says no swimming, Dean. I wouldn't want you to get arrested."

"Jackass. I can't believe you did that." Dean sounds like he's trying not to laugh, dropping down to sit beside Cas where he stretches out to dry.

"_I_ can't believe you didn't think I'd do that."

"You're so fucking lucky you look like you fell out of a porno right now." Dean mutters, and Castiel raises the arm over his eyes a few inches to arch an eyebrow at Dean, earning him a sweeping hand gesture and a leer. "Dude. Wet white button-up gone all see-through and clinging slacks. It's like, the flipside of the sorority carwash porno schtick. Wet and Wild Alpha or something. It's a good look for you. I wanna make you soap up all the cars that come through the garage in that getup."

"My shoes are going to slosh the entire rest of the day." Castiel counters in a huff, dropping his arm back over his eyes, but the slow full body stretch that arches his back slightly may, perhaps, be a bit like preening under Dean's attention, knowing that Dean is watching the slide of muscle and skin beneath fabric. He can nearly feel Dean's single-minded regard, heating his skin better than the sunlight, and he basks in it happily though he'd deny it if asked.

"Show off. And you shoulda taken the shoes off and joined me, then, huh?" Castiel startles moments later when cold water splashes over his chest. Sitting up gets him a faceful of wet shirt that Dean was wringing out over him as payback. With a discontented mutter, Castiel grabs the dangling fabric out of Dean's hand, wads it up, and shoves it behind his head; softer than the wood beneath him for a pillow, if infinitely more soggy. He bats a hand vaguely in Dean's direction, trying to hook the now shirtless Omega closer until Dean finally stretches out beside him, resting his head on Cas's chest, scraping his teeth just once over the nipple clearly visible through Cas's shirt before settling.

Cas is exhausted but comfortable here like this with Dean, even with the obvious trust games they're working through as they try to find out where they stand now that Castiel doesn't _have_ to stay. Now that there are no criminal charges to fight, making keeping Dean by his side crucial to his freedom. Even as they skirt around the events of that trial. This is about _choice_. Establishing that they're not here, either of them, because they _had _to be. Castiel doesn't own Dean, and either could go as they wished now.

He prays that Dean will stay. Or that he meant it when he invited Castiel to move in with him. He prays for any outcome that involves them together. But he can't push for it, isn't entitled to it.

"C'mon, Cas." Dean's trying to rouse them without actually moving, weighing his own follow-through on the pep talk. "If we stay here like this you're gonna burn."

"No, I'll tan. You'll freckle. And probably burn." Castiel corrects him matter-of-factly, but he lets himself be pulled back to his feet, Dean's arm slung around his shoulder once they're up, lips pressed to his temple. For all the humor in his next words, there's a thread of something truthful, serious, a proclamation if Cas will just hear it.

"Yeah, and if you don't think I resent you for _that_ a hell of a lot more than the 'mate' crap, you're wrong."

Dean Winchester has perhaps the strangest ways of saying 'I love you too' of any human being Castiel has met. Cas smiles to himself as Dean gathers up their things, tossing them into the Impala, generally answering Dean's rambling about picking up dinner and getting them home for a shower with shrugs and nods, letting himself be buoyed along in the wake of the man he loves.

xXx

Castiel falls asleep in the car long before they hit the Lawrence city limits, snoring gently against the door almost as soon as he finishes voraciously downing a drive-through burger. His arms fold around himself to hold the blazer closed over his otherwise bare chest, like he's prudish even in his sleep, or cold in the air conditioning.

He'd teased Dean's fairer skin and freckles again and insisted he put on the dress shirt he'd shucked when he got out of the courthouse, but mostly Dean's pretty sure Cas just doesn't want the people they pass to gawk at him. He may not want to "own" Dean, but he's a possessive guy in his own right. Dean teased him for it, but if someone made a move on Cas these day's he'd probably deck them. So maybe they're both a little guilty of that. When he eases them into a gas station to top off the Impala in case of future escape needs, he lets Cas sleep through it, and tucks his own jacket over Cas like a blanket before going in to pay.

Somewhere between the cold sweats in the courtroom, the impromptu dip in a lake, and the Alpha laid out like his personal wet dream, his scent blocking wore out. The attendant gives him the universal once-over leering douchebag look of approval, like Dean should give a shit what he thinks.

Yeah. He still has issues with Alphas. Even his boyfriend, who has never had to wonder if he was being followed back out into the parking lot or if the guy there was just going for a smoke. Even his little brother, who never had to fight for any scrap of approval he could get. And that's not even touching the myriad daddy-issues he knows are currently pinned to the walls of his home.

It's harder to keep the bad mood brewing with Cas at his side with his cheek plastered to the window, somehow comforting just for being there._Dean's_ not going to turn into a giant sap about it though. One of them needs to be sane about this and it isn't going to be Cas, who looks at him like he hung the frikkin' moon. Doesn't mean he has to be a prick, though. He lets Cas sleep until they're in the garage, the door closing behind them and shutting out the fading daylight with it. Coaxing Castiel awake and out of the car, he tries not to laugh at him too obviously when Cas just follows him out the driver's side rather than expend the energy to open his own door, his hand caught in Dean's like he's a kid, eyelids heavy and his yawn irrepressible.

"I'm not carrying you up the stairs, dude. And you need a friggin' shower."

"So do you." Castiel's sleepy voice rasps and rumbles, and as easy as that the entire conversation about the information spread across the house goes by the wayside—Dean keeps the lights off until they hit the bathroom, where Castiel crowds into him in the shower. It's clear they're probably not having sex tonight—Cas is handsy but not pushy, and Dean's not in the mood to take it past this, soap-slick hands against each other's skin and Castiel kneading Dean's tense muscles with talented fingers making up for the crappy water pressure of the garage apartment. By the time Dean finishes lathering and rinsing Castiel's hair, Cas has his head leaned back against Dean's shoulder and looks like he's nearly asleep on his feet again. It's relief as much as it is anything. Stress has been affecting him more than he lets on.

It's as unsurprising that Cas wraps himself around Dean as soon as they hit the bed as it is to wake up to lazy kisses down the side of his neck. Castiel's arms are loose around him, unrestraining as he lets Dean get his bearings and respond before going any farther. He's gotten better about waiting for Dean to be clearly awake before pressing flush against him, more perceptive about Dean's frequent nightmares than Dean really wishes he was, though he can't argue the results.

"Oh, so _now_ you're awake." Dean mutters, looping his arm back around Cas's shoulders as the Alpha rocks into him, cock riding the crease of his ass with each lazy roll of Cas's hips as he nuzzles into the bend between Dean's neck and shoulder. Dean's thoughts are still pleasantly hazy, just far enough removed from the rest of their drama that he can just enjoy this, the Alpha who is quickly becoming some sort of erotic alarm clock in his life. Telling Cas as much wins him a nearly silent huff of laughter, Cas's hand pressed low on Dean's stomach to pull him back into the movement.

"We were too busy yesterday." Castiel defends himself, and he groans into Dean's skin when Dean drops his arm, reaching between them to curl his fingers around Cas's length, repositioning him so he can feel the slick of Dean's arousal.

"Oh, and now you're deprived? Lifetime without sex and now you're claiming blue balls because you went a day without?" Dean teases, dragging his fingers down the sharp line of Cas's hip until he can get a grip on an ass that could make him sing praises to a life spent walking and jogging everywhere, if perpetual pedestrianism wasn't against everything held dear by a car-loving mechanic. He pulls until Cas is rutting into the channel formed between bowed thighs, sliding along Dean's perineum, so close to where he clearly wants to be but not making the move to shift them. Castiel's breath against the back of his neck sounds almost like a whine, a plea, and Dean smirks lazily and shakes his head.

"_You_ woke _me_ up, man. I'm not doing the work here. You want it, you take over."

Cas bites down on Dean's shoulder as he rolls them abruptly with that command, the hand against Dean's belly hauling his hips up as Castiel drives into Dean with an uninhibited moan. Dean's soaked and ready for him, but he clenches around the intrusion and it only takes a moment for Castiel to understand his sudden tension.

Face down in the pillows. Ass hauled into the air and an Alpha pressing him into presentation, into submissive posture. Before Cas can stammer an apology, or pull away completely, Dean gets a hand on the wall at the head of their bed, other braced beneath him to push himself up, and rocks himself backwards abruptly to seat Cas completely inside him.

"C'mon, Cas. Thought you were planning to fuck me." The words, riding back against Castiel's cock. . . Dean's in control here. He's teasingly challenging Cas, just as he had by tossing him in the lake. And he's challenging himself, forcing another show of trust contrary to his protective instincts, trying to tear apart his own issues. "'M not gonna break."

Not again, at least. Maybe he's a little cracked still, emotionally, but physically he can take anything Cas can dish out. He knows Cas isn't going to try and hurt him, or humiliate him, or force him into anything. Cas is good, and he _feels_good like this, hand coming to rest on Dean's hip, breath a stuttering hiss across Dean's shoulders as he obediently, tentatively rocks into his mate, groaning when Dean uses his leverage against the wall to meet him roughly.

He can move, here. Lift himself up, meet Cas halfway. His hands are free. No cords biting around his wrists and binding them at his back, no spreader bar forcing his ankles apart. No chafing pinch of the almost midieval stock Alastair liked to call the rack, forcing him still when he'd fought, his face near the filthy concrete floor and hips clamped high, back bowed awkwardly unless someone paid well enough for Alastair to adjust the height of the planks binding neck and wrists to the right level for his "pet" to be used at both ends. No ring keeping his mouth open because clients liked to hear him, liked the humiliation of making him whimper or drool without the ability to stop himself. No searing pain, no jeering comments about what a bitch he is, no broken bones, no gang waiting their turn. No drugs in his system, no one forcing him to beg to be raped.

Everything is so close to the surface these days, things he's managed to suppress for years. It won't stay buried, so Dean is going to face it head on for once, and this is a fight he intends to win. He beat them in the courtroom once already. He's going to do it again soon, the ghost of Alastair with them. He's not going to let them win in his head and his memories.

He can't keep waking up twisting in the sheets until he can get on his back again, terrified of anything holding him down. He used to reach for a knife, and now he has Cas reaching for him when that happens, and he wants to be able to grab hold of that offered comfort and just be _normal_. He wants to be able to give up control sometimes without worrying about it being ripped away entirely, and he wants to be able to let himself be loved without looking for the catch. He wants to be unashamed for liking this with Cas.

It's just not easy.

Dean hangs his head down to rest his forehead against the pillows, a full bodied shudder taking him that Cas can't miss, and doesn't miss. He's going to work through this though, and Cas understands that. He knows what Dean is asking him for, but it takes a moment, pressing kisses to Dean's shoulder over the mark his teeth left, nuzzling the soft skin of Dean's unprotected neck and back, to get himself back into the game.

The first true snap of his hips is hard, rocking Dean forward, startling a gutteral cry out of the Omega beneath him before he can hold it back, a chorus to Castiel's. Dean's hand slips on the bedding, bowing him down again, and this time Cas follows, blanketing over him, arm tightening around Dean's waist to keep him angled.

"I love when you let me hear you." Cas's teeth catch his ear lobe, biting down with the next hard thrust, lips grazing it gently to counter the sting as he continues. "Even when you come you can be so quiet sometimes, I can't..." Dean slaps his other hand to the wall just above his head and meets Cas in the next motion, hard, drawing a string of stilted profanity and prayer from his lover that never fails to turn Dean on.

"You sure you just can't hear me over your own blasphemy, 'padre'?" Dean relishes the scrape of Cas's teeth over his skin, the bruising grip on his hips, a hint of roughness he's convinced himself he was sick for wanting after everything he's gone through. Even during his heat (maybe especially then) Cas has been a considerate of his issues. Always ready to back away, making it Dean's responsibility to keep him there. This time, he's not going anywhere, he's committed himself to driving Dean into the mattress, letting instincts he probably didn't even realize he had take over.

This feels like power, not subjugation. Like he's not being treated like a fragile victim any more, and God does he need that right now.

It's a hard, brutal pace, a two way push and pull that leaves Dean breathless, that has Cas making enough noise that they'd probably get the cops called on them if they lived anywhere with people around.

Cas pulls out and leaves him empty for a moment, and Dean whines at the loss, too caught up in it to care about embarrassment, or whether or not he sounds like a needy Omega in a cheap porno. Cas is an Alpha: the benefit of that is he doesn't _have _to pull out, he can fill Dean up and stay there, knot him, soothe some deep-seated fear of being left behind again.

It's the first time outside of the blind need of his heat that he's considered the knotting something for _him, _instead of just how Cas needs to get off. But even if he were up to critical thinking right now, the feeling of Cas fingering into him, pressing him open and forcing more slick out of him while putting those nimble hands to good use, would shut down any higher brain function.

"Cas, I want you to _fuck me, _not..." Dean cuts off with a moan, biting the pillow beneath him and rolling his hips back into Cas's questing fingers when they hit just right. He's so damned close he can feel his limbs quaking.

"Was thinking how much I wish you could feel this. How wet you are. How tight." Cas's tongue darts out to join the party, teasing over his sensitive rim before Cas points it and thrusts it in between his fingers. Dean can feel the answering wave of slick soaking Cas to the wrist, down the backs of Dean's thighs as Cas hoists him up higher with his other arm, forcing him to put weight on his knees.

"This was the best I could do right now." Cas's hand clenches around Dean's cock, so wet with Dean's slick that he can hear it squelch between Cas's fingers. When he thrusts back into Dean, it rocks him into the tight channel of Cas's coated hand, the scent of aroused Omega so thick on the air that Cas has to be desperate from it. The slow swelling of his knot is already stretching Dean, pulling slightly with every thrust as if Dean's body desperately doesn't want to let him go. He's being bounced hard and fast between the tight-wet of Cas's hand and the hard body behind him, completely at Cas's mercy as the hand still at his hip forces him both directions.

Dean comes with a cry, falling into the pillows as his legs can no longer hold him, too high on his orgasm to notice or care that Cas buries his knot into Dean's ass moments later, collapsing on top of him heavily on the bed, breathing like he'd just run a marathon.

It's not a rush, it's bliss; peaceful, a calm that melts Dean into the mattress and shuts down the stupid nagging issues in his head. When Cas tenses again with a soft moan, rocking into Dean through another wave of his own orgasm, Dean hums contentedly and doesn't move, taking everything Cas can give with his eyes closed and his body limp and seemingly boneless.

He drifts there until Cas comes to his senses enough to pull Dean with him as he rolls them into their sides, tucking his chin over Dean's shoulder and pressing both their hands over Dean's stomach, fingers splayed wide as if he can feel himself beneath, pressure of Cas's come trapped within him by the knot making Dean feel full and anchored; cherished and held rather than vaguely dirty and used and trapped.

He doesn't fall back asleep, but it's still the most restful Dean's felt in a very long time, worshiped by Castiel's slow-rubbing hands, his praise whispered into Dean's ear, cradling Dean to him and fucking him in slow, careful circular motions that grind him into Dean's prostate, milking every ounce of pleasure he can get out of the Omega in his arms.

This time, when Castiel leans in to nuzzle the soft hair behind Dean's ear, whispering his love, Dean answers back in kind, slurred, content and unguarded.


	32. Chapter 32

Castiel is sweeping a hand up and down Dean's side, wrapped around him loosely, his head pillowed on Dean's chest now that they're separated and Cas has twisted to face him. Eventually he's going to need to clean himself up, and they probably need to wash the sheets, but Dean's still not ready to move yet, comfortable precisely where he is. His brain's kick-started again at very least, though. So that's something.

When Dean clears his throat, Cas's hand stops for a moment, signaling that he's paying attention, but he doesn't lift his head from Dean's chest. "If that was all some Omega thing, some sort of hard-wired submissive. . . _ whatever_. . . Don't tell me."

Dean can feel Cas laugh more than he can hear it, and Dean's being sandpapered by Cas's cheek but he's gotten used to that by now, come to accept it as part of the Castiel package. His hand resumes caressing Dean's skin, and he shakes his head slightly as he brushes his thumb gently over what was probably going to turn into a pretty distinctive bruise on Dean's hip. "Understanding that I have comparatively limited experience in the matter. . . so far as I can tell that was just _really good_sex, Dean."

Dean snorts in amusement, tightening his arm around Cas's back and dropping a kiss into his rumpled hair. "Damn right it was. But the sex is always good, so don't sell us short."

"Really _really_ good." Castiel deadpans, clarifying for the sake of not insulting the rest of their intercourse, and earning himself a light swat on the ass for his trouble.

"No one likes a smug smartass, Cas. . ."

"Clearly that's not true. We tolerate each other perfectly well."

Dean guffaws, and Cas turns his face into Dean's skin, pressing a kiss to the thrumming heartbeat beneath his cheek and smiling, pleased as always when someone actually catches and appreciates his humor. He likes starting the day out like this, even if he does get the feeling that he's declaring war on the rest of the day the moment he steps foot out of their bedroom. It's surprising that the two of them don't suffer from some sort of emotional whiplash, given how quickly they swing from some of the lowest points of their relationship to the highest. He can feel Dean steeling himself for it, too, for having to get up out of the bed and face their families and the trial nonsense. Despite himself he tightens his arm around Dean, tangling their legs together to keep him from getting up yet.

He can't decide if it's childish, the need to try and hide from the world, or particularly Alpha, the need to keep his mate in bed with him all day. . . but either way he knows he can't indulge in it forever. He just wants a few more minutes.

"C'mon, Cas. I gotta clean up, and I need to take a piss." Dean rolls his eyes at Cas's disgruntled huff, trying to peel Cas off of him. "Yeah, well, someone likes to knot me first thing in the fucking morning. . ."

"Are we calling it 'the fucking morning' as an official, designated time period for that activity now?"

"Why are you planning on penciling into your schedule? 'Booked until 8AM daily for sex'?" Dean's retorts are lightning fast, and Cas is a little envious of that. "Man I've done a number on you, between the nymphomania and the cussing."

He never used to use profanity, that much is true. Dean's rubbing off on him, he's almost sounding comfortable in it now. He _knows_ that being with Dean is affecting him, loosening up his mannerisms a little when they're alone like this—Dean's easy banter and his teasing are infectious, and he can't help trying to match it in his own way. He's still painfully awkward at times. . . his testimony would have been disastrous without Sam to guide it, and he knows that. And come to think of it, he's still fairly certain he's terrified of Ellen Harvelle. But Dean he's already more comfortable around than he is his own brothers, particularly in recent years.

"If we're going out today, I need another shower. You're making breakfast. Don't burn the place down."

Dean presses a kiss to his forehead affectionately and then jabs him in the shoulder to get Cas to release him, a mess of contradictions even at the best of times, and Cas lets him go with a puff of laughter. As the shower comes on, Cas reluctantly throws on as little clothing as he can get away with if their families suddenly decide to descend, and meanders towards the kitchen and his first addiction.

He needs coffee. The very thought leaves him yawning as he blearily starts eggs in the pan, determined to get it right this time. He dumps a stick of butter into the pan to melt and runs water into the carafe, before the living room catches his attention, out of the corner of his eye.

He knows what this is. He knows what this means. He suspected the outcome of this investigation before he ever handed the receipt to Dean, because it's what he would do. Were he John Winchester, given the opportunity and the funds, knowing his motivation, he would have murdered Dean's tormentor and never looked back.

He knows he shouldn't invade, should wait for Dean to explain it to him in his usual terse way about this, but his mouth has gone dry, the world has dropped out from beneath him, and he finds himself drawn across the room with his eyes fixed on a single point in the web of information.

xXx

It's not until he smells smoke over the pungent scent of his own soaps that Dean remembers why Castiel meandering through the apartment this morning before Dean was a bad idea. He thought he'd have time to head him off, to explain and break it to him easier. He shouldn't have put it off, run from everything again. Cursing quietly, suds sliding into his eyes, Dean rinses as quickly as he can and slings a towel around his hips, jogging into the living room on bare feet.

It's bizarre, Castiel looking painfully domestic in his white boxers and one of Dean's old t-shirts with bed hair, standing in front of a case-wall of Dean's worst nightmare. Dean can see the corded muscles in Cas's arms as he stands with one of the pages in his clenched fingers, jaw tense, a cold sort of fury rolling off of him and his breathing metronome steady, obvious as he controls himself. It's a complete 180 from the sweet, sappy, slightly dorky man who had just been curled up in Dean's bed with him, who laughed quietly at his own terrible jokes.

"My brother's picture is on this wall." It's not an accusation aimed at Dean, but he flinches anyway.

Lucifer's smirking face, posed in front of a shelf of legal books, has lines from the crappy printer streaking through it. Map pins had been driven through the edges of the picture, and now strings hang limply from other images and receipts and documents, and the edges of the page in Cas's hand are ragged from him tearing it free without trying to unpin it first.

". . ._shit_."

"_Why_ is my brother on this wall, Dean." This air of potential violence around Castiel isn't even _aimed_ at Dean, and it's more than a little scary. He should have warned Cas, but he was desperately trying not to think about it, trying not to see the blue of Lucifer's eyes on that page and think of the fact that they obviously both got that trait from their shared father. He tried not to react to it around Charlie, who hadn't made the connection at all given their last names.

Dean clears his throat, and his voice is bitter but steady when he speaks. "Small world these days. Turns out there's a law firm famous for getting people like Alastair out of jail. . ."

A firm that would tell Alastair to pay for Dean like a whore, and keep him out of jail for the crime of abducting him and facilitating hundreds of rapes. Who saw Castiel's name in conjunction with Dean's and flew across the country to dissuade his little brother from associating with Dean. Who knew his 'training' well enough to contemptuously spit it at him in Castiel's apartment.

Who had kept Alastair out of jail before, and made Dean's abduction possible, and who'd quietly accessed all of the records of Alastair's disappearance, according to Charlie's own sleuthing. Who treated Omegas as beneath him, a tool for sex or procreation, just like his father before him.

Who was paid in money earned by Dean on his knees begging to die rather than be drugged into his heats again and again. Who, for all Dean knew, may have also been paid in favors from Alastair and his pets up to and including Dean, who would never remember his face. Lucifer, who treated Dean as subhuman at best, who deliberately used the words _pet_ and _whore_ and _toy_and _begging for it_.

No matter whether or not he ever took advantage of his client's 'property' while protecting his ability to keep them as slaves, Lucifer knew. He knew all along. Dean knows there's some bad blood between Lucifer and Castiel, and he suspects it was at the heart of the apparent brawl between brothers at Jimmy's funeral. But this has pushed everything far beyond what he saw when Lucifer broke into Castiel's apartment.

The paper crumples in Castiel's fist and he stalks out of the room silently, simmering with anger and hatred.

Taking a moment to turn off the stove before they burn the place down around them, Dean eventually follows him at a safe distance, stopping outside of their bedroom door as Cas finishes yanking on clothing and snatches up his cell phone.

"Who're you calling?"

Cas's fingers curl around the phone, the paper copy of his brother's picture tattered and crumpled on the floor at his feet, and he doesn't know. He hasn't thought that far ahead.

The problem with premeditated murder is you have to put thought into it first, and he's not there yet.

He can't think, his thoughts are on a loop. His entire last conversation with Lucifer is playing through his mind, catching all the nuances he didn't know to look for yet, the look on his brother's face, Lucifer's behavior towards Dean. He can taste bile, hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears, and he can't look at Dean.

Lucifer is his family. His family helped do this to Dean. Lucifer probably masterminded the check that tore Dean's life even further apart.

"I'm going to kill him." It comes out distant, cold, certain.

"And what's that gonna help, Cas? We'll just be back to you going to jail, and this time it won't be a few months at stake."

Dean brought him a sandwich and held his hand in the courtroom, even knowing this already. He slept with him, handed his trust completely over to someone who's family thought _that_ about him. It had been so easy to look at the men who attacked Dean and think of them as the enemy, as poor representations of society. Violent, evil men who had harmed Dean, raised by hateful, bigoted families to look down on Dean.

Lucifer helped raise him. Lucifer handed him his first drink. Lucifer tried to buy him time with a prostitute when he presented as Alpha as they knew he would. Did he do that just for him because he seemed disinterested in sex, or did he give the same 'gift' to any of their other brothers? Did any of them _not_turn him down? God, that Omega could have been anyone. A few years later and it could have been Dean. Even then, it was probably someone in exactly the same forced position as Dean, one way or the other. It may have been an earlier one of Alastair's victims, reciprocity for the young new attorney who represented him. He can't remember faces. He didn't sleep with anyone, he'd been bothered by it all, but he just left. Left them there, and he never even considered that they might be in danger.

He's going to be sick.

Dean sighs, padding into the room on bare feet and resting a hand on Cas's tensed shoulder, ducking down to catch his eyes, to force him to meet Dean's stare. "It's not your fault, Cas."

It's a hollow comfort, but he doesn't shy away from Dean when he wraps his arms around Cas's shoulders, pulling him into a one-sided hug. It doesn't change the facts. He's no better than any of them. Another rich Alpha asshole who never even thought about it beyond himself.

He's part of the problem.

xXx

Cas is subdued on the ride, staring out the window blankly, one hand clenched in a fist on his knee and the other caught by Dean's any time he doesn't need his own to drive. He's pretty sure keeping Castiel calm is a useless endeavor, but it doesn't mean he won't try anyway.

He doesn't know what's going through Cas's head, apart from the apparent sudden fratricidal tendencies, but something about discovering Lucifer's part in Alastair's racket floored Cas entirely. Dean wishes he could say the same, but all it did for him was make it all click, the final missing piece in a puzzle. He's an eternal pessimist—he's pretty sure his first thought was a bitter _of course_.

He had been more worried about whether or not Alastair was still drawing air, about whether his father'd become a murderer for him, to wonder about the tangential information.

Castiel follows him a few steps behind, pace slow and mind clearly still busy, as they head into the hotel. This time, instead of Sam alone in the breakfast room, Charlie is chatting animatedly to him while scrolling on the computer and scooping granola into her mouth, and Gabriel sits at the table with his head on his fist, looking hung over and disgusted with the idea of mornings where people want to talk to him after he had free shots all night, and now enough donuts on his plate to feed an army.

Sam greets Dean with a hug, and he doesn't quite control the wince when his brother slaps one of his gargantuan hands to Dean's shoulder, right over the bite mark Cas left behind. He notices the stiff gait in which Dean tries to go past him as well. Which would have been fine if Castiel hadn't narrowed his eyes on Gabriel, gaze sharpening as he lands on something he can use, every muscle tensing again like he's ready to fight already. If he didn't smell like sex and aggression, prowling past a trained observer who's been on the lookout for people who might hurt his brother. Who knew Cas was capable of violence and no longer had a legal threat to force him to behave.

Sam's hand closes around Dean's arm, dragging him back to his side, and Charlie stops with her spoon caught between her lips, hand poised over the keyboard and eyebrows both rising sharply with alarm as the entire mood of the breakfast changes.

"_Dean. . ."_

"Woah! Hands off the merchandise, Sam! I'm fine. It's not what you. . ."

A chair scrapes the floor loudly as Castiel seats himself directly beside his brother, blue eyes focused and intent, words coming out clipped and sharp between his teeth. "You told me Lucifer is how you knew where to find me. Tell me everything he said."

Charlie, quick to catch on, puts two and two together about the last names at last, disbanding the idea of coincidence that had Gabriel sharing a last name with Lucifer. "Wait, what. . .? _No._"

Gabriel blinks, chewing his bite of donut slowly and swallowing heavily, looking around the room at all of them, the only one completely out of the loop with no idea why he's being interrogated, or why Sam is acting like Cas is a threat, or why Charlie is staring at him in horror. Dean's in a room full of twitchy, defensive, confused and upset Alphas.

In short, breakfast is a clusterfuck from the very start.


	33. Chapter 33

Sam's pacing doesn't work as well in the hotel 'war room' as it does in the courtroom. There it seemed like leonine prowling, here it just seems neurotic and makes the entire place feel tiny. Because it is tiny. Even for a decent sized hotel room there's still just so much space between the end of the beds and the hotel provided table, and his brother is a freakishly big guy and making everyone nervous.

"Sam, if you don't sit down I'm taking your kneecaps out."

Okay, so maybe not so much nervous in Dean's case. He's sidestepped nervous and moved on to just being pissed off with all of them. Particularly since Sam practically manhandled him into the elevator, and then staged this so that he's between Cas and Dean, like Dean needs protecting. And the circumstances that have brought them all together notwithstanding, he's done pretty damned well for himself at that.

All the times he's kicked ass whenever someone got handsy, and the only thing they see when they look at him is the couple of times he failed. So yeah. He's getting steadily more pissed the longer the posturing continues.

"You're hurt." Sam counters, all Alpha.

"_Kneecaps."_Dean's voice cracks like a whip in the room, a warning and command in one random threat, and he sounds so much like his father in that moment that it's like John crawled out of his grave to put the fear of God into them all. Sam drops into the chair across from Dean, and then folds his arms across his puffed out chest as if to prove he's not doing it because he was commanded to, but Dean just sees a lanky sullen hormonal Alpha teenager butting heads with the brother who raised him, instinctively railing against an Omega bossing him around.

"Yes, Cas and I fucked this morning. It was awesome. I was into it. Now do you need _details_ about what it's like being on the other end of the mattress-pounding or can you shut the fuck up about it and accept that I'm not some stupid abused little 'Omega bitch' who can't tell when he's being abused?"

"'Pounding,' huh? Way to go, bro. Knew you had it in you." Gabriel brought his donuts with him, and he raises a slightly sticky hand toward his brother, waiting for a high-five that never comes.

Castiel is so tightly wound that it'd probably take a crowbar at this point to unfold his arms, or get him to open his mouth so he's not speaking through his teeth. Dean's pretty sure it'd also take a full excavation team a couple of weeks to pull the stick out of his ass. "I wouldn't _hurt_ Dean."

Pissy, offended, and homicidal. That look shouldn't work for Dean, and it's not that he's doing some Omega rolling over and presenting thing in his head. He just knows their libidos well enough to figure he could redirect that into some seriously athletic wall slamming sex to burn off some of their steam. He _really_should stop looking when he's in a room full of people who are hardwired to know when he's liking what he sees, and how deeply fucked up is he that he'd like that anyway?

Clenching his jaw, Dean keeps his eyes on Sam instead and speaks slowly and clearly for his brother's benefit, harnessing the anger that's a hell of a lot more prevalent than anything else right now, that he's always had to get him through this crap. "See? No domestic abuse going on here. We're the fucking Cleavers or whatever."

"Emphasis on 'fucking'?"

"_Shut up, Gabriel_." On this at least Cas, Dean and Sam are in agreement. Or at least in chorus. Gabriel smirks at his own joke, looking to Charlie at least for some sort of acknowledgement of his comedy genius.

Charlie raises her hands slightly, begging out of being dragged into it. "Dude. _Lesbian._ I'm like the only person in this conversation who _really _doesn't care how two guys get off together. I want to get back to the part where you two are apparently related to that asshole, Lucifer."

"Charlie." There's a quiet warning in Sam's voice, like he doesn't want to be too obvious about talking down their brother, but then again he also doesn't know about their research. He just knows Lucifer as head of a law firm they've apparently butted heads with. Who tried to _hire_ Sam. That idea just compounds Dean's pissed-offedness.

"No, she's right, Luci's an asshole." Gabriel agrees easily, taking another bite of his donut, supremely unconcerned about insulting the brother closest to him in age. "Not sure why Cassie's back to murdering him, but I'm at least 90% sure he deserves it." He looks to his brother, raising an eyebrow and asking with his mouth full. "What'd he do this time?"

"Enabled a sex-slaver to drug, rape and abuse Omegas, and get away with it."

Dean thinks a pin could probably be heard dropping in the room. And it's carpeted, so that's a solid accomplishment for the realm of awkward silences. There's no question who Cas is talking about to have him sound like _that_.

Gabriel is staring back at Cas in flat out shock. Sam is staring at Dean in horror and comprehension. Charlie is staring at Sam worriedly. Dean is staring at the ceiling wondering when the hell he became a cause instead of a living breathing human being, and entirely certain he's sick of it. No, he was wrong. That wasn't a pin drop. That's the sound of the last straw, breaking the camel's back. His voice is deceptively quiet, tight and controlled when he speaks.

"So now that we've shared that with _everyone_ I know in the state of Kansas, are you planning on calling everyone in South Dakota next, or would an ad in the newspaper work for you?" Dean drops his chin, spearing Castiel with a look, waiting until Cas lowers his gaze in shame, letting his breath out in a shuddering apology that Dean summarily ignores because he's on a roll.

"No, why don't all of you shut the fuck up about it for a minute." Gritting his teeth, Dean shoves himself to his feet, stalking away from his brother at the table, away from Cas and Gabriel sitting on one bed and Charlie on the other, over to lean against the wall next to the windows, arms folded, body tense. He's not taking this conversation sitting down. If Charlie and Gabriel are in the middle of this. . . well, hell, it was Sam and Cas's choice to do this crap with them in the room and make them part of it too.

"I am sick and fucking tired of having to explain this shit to people and you two. . . Sam, Cas. . . you're the people who're supposed to not need the fucking memo." Dean rakes his hands through his hair, resisting the urge to go smack both of them upside the head by keeping his hands busy. "I don't give a shit what the law says, I'm not some fucking_property_ for either of you. I don't need you pissing around me in a circle staking a claim. I don't need you assholes making decisions for me. And if we're fucking telling everyone and anyone about_my_ life story, I get to decide when and where. It's all going to be a matter of public record soon enough, they can just look up the fucking testimony themselves if they need to know that badly."

Sam drops his head, contrite, letting Dean focus his attention on Castiel, his words loaded and angry, aimed to cut. "If I wanted to be talked about like I'm not a _person_in the goddamn _room_with you all, there's apparently a line of knothead Alphas up for that task. God knows I got enough of that shit in my lifetime. From fucking _Lucifer_and _Alastair_ to name a few."

He probably could have punched Castiel in the face and gotten less pained a look than he does for that comment. Castiel looks physically gutted by it, pale and horrified, and it's all Dean can do not to yank words back or go across the room and comfort him. Rubbing a hand over his jaw, as if he can keep himself from saying anything else stupid, Dean paces away a few steps, distance for control.

It's Charlie who breaks the silence afterwards, shifting uncomfortably on the bed, drawing Dean's gaze to her as she speaks, carefully redirecting the conversation.

"You mentioned the law. We wanted to talk to you before all the rest of this came up. _Sam_ did." Sam takes a breath and raises his chin, squaring his shoulders. "He got your Dad's will. Technically, you're Sam's ward now. Your dad gave him guardianship if anything happened to him. . ." She speeds up before the once-again darkening expression on Dean's face has time to turn into words. ". . . And it's a stupid cruddy law. _No one_ in this room likes that law, trust me. So. . ."

"I think you should sue the government."

Charlie sweeps her hand at Sam in a 'well, there you have it' gesture.

Dean blinks.

Castiel raises his head and stares at Sam.

"And I think I need all of you in on this to make it work. But mostly. . . Dean, it's gotta be you." Sam's got that look again, the crusading expression; an agenda, the will to follow it through, and the dogged determination to barrel past anything that gets in his way to do it. If anything, Dean's censure made him more determined. He glances to Castiel, his next words a peace offering held out between them. "And I think we can tear apart Alastair, Lucifer, and anyone else that makes those places possible, while we're at it."

Gabriel whistles low and long after a moment and puts his plate of donuts down on the nightstand beside him, wiping his hands off on his jeans.

"Man. You guys _really_ don't do small talk, do you?"

xXx

The hotel bar sucks.

Or maybe Dean's been a little spoiled by the Roadhouse.

Either way, Dean isn't even buzzed yet. Clearly that's a failing on the part of the bar and bartender, who is definitely no Jo. Hell, she's not even an Ellen—Ellen knows how to dish out the good stuff, she just tends to be stingy with it around Dean because of some misguided belief that he's an alcoholic. Just because he'd rather have a drink in his hand when he's figuring shit out than he would prefer to be stone sober, and has since he was 13 and she first found him drunk upstairs in her bar, after his first week back at school.

Sam brought that up when he came back for John's funeral, when he thought that Dean had crashed the Impala after drinking because of their dad's death. He'd had the same look on his face that Ellen gets when he confronted him in this parking lot about it. Clearly this is a sign that they just don't get it. Jo, though, is a saint. The patron saint of drunks in Lawrence. And this chick isn't her.

He's not avoiding the idea they brought up. He just needs to be properly fortified to deal with this. He wants a few more drinks to get the look on Cas's face out of his head, too, so he can wrap his head around the other crap. But that look lingers, the one that says Dean was right to point out that he was too broken to be any good in a relationship, that he runs his mouth off and screws shit up.

Dean warned him. Tried to warn him, at least. Maybe they were too far gone for warnings already by then. Some niggling part of Dean's subconscious that paid enough attention to the trite Alpha/Omega mates romance shit on TV is trying to inform him of the sad broken Lifetime movies about tragic heroic Alphas losing or being rejected by their mate.

He's not examining that thought.

And he didn't run from the conversation, he very clearly and very concisely if a little abruptly declared his need for a drink and walked out of the hotel room.

When Sam settles down next to him at the bar, requesting a beer, Dean checks the time and downs his shot. "Thirty-two minutes, and the little brother is the winner. How long of that was you and Cas in a pissing contest about who'd get to come talk me down?"

"Less than ten, probably more than five." Sam admits, folding his arms on the bar top, thumbnail peeling at the label on his bottle. "Cas was about to walk out right after you, but after that he's not exactly saying much." Dean winces, fumbling the usually smooth flip of the glass as he lines it up neatly in front of him. "And I figure you needed the space from all of us for a little while."

Dean tips his head, admitting that Sam is not entirely wrong, and signals for his next shot. Seriously, it's not even noon. She has no other patrons at her bar. How can she be slow at this?

Couple of months ago he would have played his cards right and had her leaning over the bar chatting and flirting with him, and it wouldn't have mattered if she had other customers.

Here he's apparently a mated Omega and a sullen drinker.

Sam sighs quietly, shifts on his seat, and eventually pulls a folded piece of paper out of the back pocket of his jeans. He slides it in front of Dean and puts a hotel pen on top. "That's Emancipation papers. It's supposed to be for Alphas and Betas getting out of the house before they're eighteen because of conflict or to join the army or go to college. I can file it in California, put it in front of one of the judges I know there, since you're technically supposed to be under my guardianship. It's not exactly common, but I _know_if I push right I can force it through somehow."

"Heh." One way or another, Sam's determined for Dean's freak flag to fly in California. Sam frowns at him and his lack of an answer.

"I know you don't. . . that it was never a thing. Dad never tried to push that once you were gone to Bobby's. . ."

"Leash is still a leash, Sam. Even if it's a long one you don't ever forget it's there." And it's just bitches that get leashes. Usually metaphorical here, maybe, but from what Dean's heard literal in other parts of the world still. And god knows he was yanked around enough by a cord around his neck enough under Alastair's 'care.'

This, it just meant that anything he wanted to do with his life, anything that required any legal authority, he had to either fake an ID as a Beta, or have them send legal forms on to his father like he was a frikkin' kid. Instead, it's Bobby's name on his lease, John's name on the car, and if he ever landed in the hospital again their father he would call for permission on how to treat him.

(There's another reason he's popping his little sister's birth control pills every day, and that's fucking embarrassing enough thanks.)

"I know." No, he doesn't. But Dean isn't going to correct him this time, because he's done enough damage raging at them all. He's refusing to look at Sam's beseeching expression, either. Jesus, people are going to start thinking he's got issues looking people in the eye, and the truth is that Sam and Cas just keep yanking him around with those _looks._ "I don't want to be the one holding that leash. And I know Cas is your mate or. . . or _boyfriend_. . ." Sam respectfully corrects himself to Dean's preferred term, and that's irritating because there was never any question that Jess was his _girl_friend and Sam was her _boy_friend, then they were _fiancées_, but there's hesitation for Dean because he is what he is. ". . . but I don't think you want him having that power either. And considering what you just said to him. . ."

Cas would probably rather have his balls cut off, packaged, and handed to him than he would sign anything saying Dean belonged _to_him like property.

Dean hums quietly in agreement and orders a beer, slowing down the drinking. It's a sign that he's paying attention, but he's also thinking. "You've had this in mind for a while now. _'__Suing the government.'_"

Sam shrugs, nodding at the same time, and it's little sheepish. "I mean. . . not as a solid plan. But I've been studying civil rights since. . ." Since he returned to school after Dean disappeared, honestly. "And it has to start somewhere. It has to start _with_ someone. Winning the court case for Cas, it doesn't really _do_ anything for you long-run. I mean, even if we put these guys away for it. _This_, this could do something for anyone who's ever been put in a farm, or treated like you were. They just need someone to stand up first."

Dean snorts derisively, rolling the mouth of the bottle along his lower lip. "And I'm the worst sob story you know, or I'm just the token Omega in your life? A frikkin' _assault_ trial is screwing with my head this bad, Sam, and your plan's to have me . . . what, turn court cases into my life for the next ten years? Poster child for a fucking 'civil rights' movement."

"Dean, you're the strongest person I know. Not. . . not the strongest _Omega_, the strongest_person._I've _told_ you that before, I need you to believe me. I know I get a little crazy about looking out for you, but you've always done it for me, too. It's not because I think you're weak." Sam rakes his hair back and turns to face his brother, elbow on the bar, desperately trying to get Dean to listen to him. "I can do this, Dean. _We_can do this. Look, I know it sounds crazy. But this is the only way things change. And it wouldn't be just you. Your name would be on the lawsuit, but we'd do it class action with as many other effected Omegas as we could find. I'd get your testimony down, and keep you out of it as much as I can until we reached the deciding court. Something like this, it'd be years before you needed to go back in. You might never have to, and if you did you wouldn't be alone. Just. . . give me a chance to tell you about it."

Dean finishes his beer with his brother at his elbow, and checks his watch again after a few more minutes before pushing out of his chair. Sam immediately pops out of his own seat and drops cash on the bar to cover them, waiting to see what his brother's going to say. "I still think you're nuts."

Drumming his fingertips against the counter as he decides, Dean snatches up the pen, uncaps it with his teeth, and scrawls his signature along the bottom of the Emancipation papers, pushing it back to Sam with his fingertips.

His tenuous largely metaphorical freedom on a piece of paper that's going to be contested the second it leaves this hotel.

"Start with that." Sighing, Dean gestures back out at the lobby. "And lead the way before Cas gets back to the idea of murdering his asshole brother as some sort of penance, and talks Gabriel into giving him a ride."

Sam's smile is a lot more than Dean deserves, and he sidesteps his brother before Sam can sweep in with a hug again.

"I didn't say yes, Sam."

But he didn't say no, either.

They're waiting for the elevator when Sam bumps his arm, watching their slightly warped and blurred reflection on the doors. "We're on your side, Dean. I think. . . you need to remember that. Everyone here, we're not trying to make this harder on you."

Dean shoves his hands into his pockets, closing his eyes, nodding. "Yeah, Sammy. I know. It's just. . ."

Everything is fucking with his head. Knowing that Crowley is there, what he's going to say about Dean, what it's going to make people think. What it makes Dean think about himself, all screwed up as he trieds to find the balance between what he is with Cas and what people are going to assume he is with Cas and where the line is if they're blurring it now. And now it's the idea of facing that nationwide, opening him up to that on a massive stage.

He's lashing out at the wrong people, and it's fucked up, and he knows it.

"I know."

xXx

Cas can't meet his eyes when he walks back into the room. Around him, there's some bustling. Gabriel's clearly gone back to his room and grabbed his wallet and keys. Charlie's zipping up her laptop bag and swept her hair back into a ponytail, and it looks like she may have taken the time to put some makeup on as well. Both of them look like they were just talking, though, unsuccessfully trying to drag Castiel into it as well.

Cas is sitting exactly where Dean left him, shoulders slumped, lips chalky, staring at the pattern of the carpet beneath his shoes. Like he shut off when Dean walked away, or when Sam drew the straw for going to get Dean himself. Cas looked pretty torn up when he realized Lucifer was involved, but this takes it to a new level. Sam looks from his brother to Cas and back, silently pleading with him to fix this for both their sakes.

The look Gabriel shoots Dean is nothing short of threatening. But he doesn't need their involvement to know he lost his temper. Cas looks like he was just dumped in front of his family. Or like someone just died.

He settles beside Cas on the bed, close enough that they're a line of loosely connected points—shoulder to knee to the sides of their shoes-resting his hand palm-up, loose and open on Cas's knee, and invitation rather than presuming he should go grabbing his hand and holding on. Seconds later Cas's fingers twine through his, and he lets out a slow, shuddering breath, leaning heavily into Dean's side.

"We going out?" The question is for the room at large, but he aims it at Cas.

"Ellen called while you were downstairs and not answering your phone. She was very. . . persuasive." Cas mutters, looking flustered as color creeps back into his face. "And insisted that if we were having any planning sessions that she was going to be involved. Charlie indicted that Ash's assistance in particular might be helpful, and. . ."

Gabriel slaps Cas on the shoulder, leaning around him to look at Dean and cut him off, his voice one of forced levity even if his eyes haven't softened in how he's glaring at Dean. "Cas folded in ten seconds because your 'mom' terrifies him."

"Pretty much exactly what happened." Charlie pipes in to confirm from farther in the room.

". . . and Red jumped all over the idea because she spent last night drooling over lil sister at the bar." Gabriel finishes, jerking his thumb at Charlie, who sticks her tongue out at him maturely, before trying to look innocently at Dean and Sam. Dean's the reason all of this feels a little strained, but everyone is trying to smooth over what happened.

". . . Jo had knives! She was cutting up fruit for my drinks, all hot and strangely violent, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was, like, my first full on girl-on-girl fantasy growing up, and Jo has . . ."

"Oversharing!" Sam cuts her off like an objection thrown out in the courtroom as he tucks the Emancipation papers into his briefcase. He really, really would prefer not to hear about Charlie's sexual fantasies now incorporating Jo.

Dean takes a breath, squeezes Cas's hand, and draws him to his feet. He has to do his part to fix this with all of them, since he's the one screwing things up.

As Charlie steps past them toward the door, Dean leans toward her and lowers his voice conspiratorially. "I always kinda thought Buffy was probably secretly an Alpha."

Charlie's sudden smile is radiant, surprised, gratified. It had been the adolescent fantasy of a lonely, out of place orphan, now validated by a friend who figured out what it probably meant to her. Why she looked to Buffy, instead of their own geeky red-headed computer geek, as her idol. "I _know_, right!"

"Pft. Xander was an Omega." Dean and Charlie turn towards Gabriel, where he holds the door open for them to pass, eavesdropping openly. "Everything tried to sleep with him, then eat him. It was obvious."

"Gee, thanks asshole." Dean shoots back at him, earning him a smug smirk and a wink from Gabriel. As the three others head down the hall, he can hear Charlie starting up the debates with Gabriel.

"So what's your take on Spike? I always thought he was trying to show us something with the thing with his mother, then how dependent he was on Drusilla and then Buffy..."

He grimaces as they murder pop culture, but turns back to Cas.

He tries not to be too conscious of the group just down the hall, Gabriel jabbing the button again as if it'll hurry up the doors opening, chattering to drown out their conversation, as Cas finally sighs. "I'm sorry, Dean. I didn't mean . . ."

"Yeah, I know. It wasn't... I'm being a dick, Cas." Dean interrupts, shaking his head. No, he can't just shove it all away, that won't fix it either. "You didn't _mean_anything by it. And I didn't mean what I said, I was just pissed and I went too far, and I..." Dean laughs, once, bitter and broken, and Castiel lifts his eyes from their linked hands, searching Dean's face. "I suck at this, Cas. Help me out here."

"Just tell me what you need." Cas's voice is low and resonate, and behind them in the hall the elevator dings like a frikkin' timer for just when to interrupt difficult conversations, drawing a frustrated groan out of Dean.

"We'll go on ahead." Sam calls, because his brother is a saint and deserves to be carved into statues and monuments. "We won't... We won't talk without you," he continues, because his brother also doesn't know how to shut up and let something go without making it more awkward.

"You could just get a room. I hear a little 'mattress pounding' can do wonders." Gabriel adds with an eyebrow waggle as the elevator doors slide shut in front of him-because Cas's brother is the devil in disguise as a 5'5" pain in the ass, and Dean doesn't care who was named after what angel in their stupid pretentious family.

Just as Cas is deciding that if he does ever marry Dean how he wants to, he's not inviting Gabriel, Dean grabs Cas by the shirt collar, hauls him in, and kisses him.

(Come to think of it, he might make Gabriel his best man.)

They can't just bury this under their sexual tension, and both of them know that. It doesn't mean closing the distance between them isn't pretty much exactly what they needed.

Cas leans against the closed hotel door behind them, their hands still linked, Cas raising his free one to rest on Dean's hip, the slight pain of it over the bruise a clear reminder of their morning activities.

Dean isn't looking for that ferocity again right now, that passion, but he'd sure as hell would love to get ahold of that peace and quiet that came after. So he kisses Cas like he can soothe away that rejected, devastated expression from their memories. Like he can get them back there with the proper application of lips and tongues, fingertips to Cas's cheek.

It's sappy. And he swore he wasn't going to be the sappy one. But he never really planned to be the one would could turn a pissed-off rant into emotionally scarring comparisons, either.

This is proof that he didn't mean it, because he's just going to fuck up again if he keeps trying to say it instead.

Cas, contrary fucker that he is, is the one to bring it right back to words. He needs to hear this, needs to know what to do to fix them. He rests his forehead against Dean's, eyes closed, voice hoarse as he pulls them back to their conversation. "Tell me what you need, Dean."

"Just. . . we need to calm the fuck down and start thinking again, Cas. Because I have no idea what the hell we're getting into here, and I need you to. . ." He just needs Cas to have his head in the game, too. He needs Cas to not make it worse, not to get pissed off at the wrong things. They're feeding each other's anger and frustration, making each other worse. He needs Cas to have his back in this, whatever the hell 'this' is.

He just needs Cas in general. And that's pretty terrifying in itself, now that he realizes it.

Cas is searching his face, looking for the end of that sentence, and seems to read the rest of it in Dean's expression. He lets the tension bleed out of himself slowly, forcing himself to put aside what just happened, and get a lid on his temper. Dean presses another kiss to his forehead, and pulls him away from the door, dropping their hands so they're not wandering the halls skipping and holding hands like he's a besotted teenaged girl or something.

"C'mon. Let's go see what the rest of the Scoobies are up to."

"...What does a cartoon dog have to do with your family and mine?" Castiel's face has scrunched up in confusion, his head cocking to the side as he falls into step beside Dean.

"How the hell are you and Gabriel even related?" Cas raises and drops his shoulders in an awkward shrug, still faintly puzzled.

"Yeah. We're going to sit down and fix your TV watching habits someday soon." Neither of them has any objection to the idea of curling up in bed watching TV all day someday, feeding each other popcorn. Probably his best plan in years. For now, though, they've got something else to tackle. "So. Wanna go piss off the establishment with me?"

"I hear I'm relatively good at that." Castiel's self-deprecating deadpan is familiar, comforting, and just what Dean needed to hear. Cas is sticking with him even if he decides to go through with whatever inevitably stupid plan he and his family cook up.

They're both trying to make this work. So it's _going_to work.

Because stubbornness is a trait they both definitely have in common.


	34. Chapter 34

"Second breakfast." Dean elbows Castiel in the side, smirking the moment they ignore the closed sign and step through the door, pointing at Gabriel where he sits with a plate of food flanked by Jo with a cup of coffee on one side stealing his bacon, and Charlie comparing computers with Ash on the other. "Your brother's a hobbit."

"He certainly has the appetite. Not far from the right height." Castiel concedes wryly, pocketing the keys to the Impala. The drive over has convinced him that Dean should either never drink and thus always be allowed to drive, or drink until he's unconscious so he can't dictate how Castiel drives. As much as he enjoys their usual banter, he's not entirely comfortable behind the wheel of a car, and Dean's overprotectiveness of it complicates that.

"You get _that_ reference, at least."

"_Everyone_knows that reference, Dean. And I spent all the time I wasn't watching 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'" the title rolls off his tongue with an air of complete incredulity, deliberately feeding into Dean's teasing ". . .reading books."

Cas is genuinely making an effort to change the tone, to set aside what happened and to put aside his own lingering problems and anger and fear. Dean's nervous and he's hurting, Castiel overstepped boundaries, and Dean lashed out. They've admitted it and they've apologized, and they're trying to move past it. Intellectually, Cas understands that. Emotionally, he's still reeling. He's been wearing his heart on his sleeve too often around Dean, and he's fallen out of the habit of keeping himself entirely composed.

It was always harder when it came to family, too. Gabriel is watching him from bend of the table, scrutinizing Castiel's expression with a level stare that belies his usual smart-assed demeanor. After eight years of only email and mail contact, Gabriel's first days back around Castiel have been less than an ideal representation of their relationship. Cas shakes his head slightly, warning his brother off from asking questions. He doesn't want to play to the guilt he knows Dean already feels, and he silently begs Gabriel to let it go.

Gabriel has always been more perceptive about social cues than Castiel. His lips twist faintly, but he stabs his eggs like they personally insulted him then shovels them into his mouth. He speaks around the food so he doesn't have to try to fool anyone with his tone as he picks up Castiel's dropped conversational thread for him, smoothing things over for his little brother in his own way.

"He spent _all_ of his time he wasn't doing _anything_ reading books. And not doing any_one_ for that matter." He jabs his fork in the direction of Sam where he stands removed from them on the phone, his hand covering his other ear. "And if I'm a hobbit, your brother's a wookie."

"Makes me Han Solo. I'm cool with that." Dean shrugs, and steps to the side, waiting for Castiel to slide into the booth seat before him. Putting Dean on the outside, rather than in the more protected (penned in) seat.

Cas isn't sure what's a deliberate gesture any more—he can't tell if Dean is trying to convey a message with these choices, or if it's just preference. He's afraid of offending Dean, of doing something inadvertently to widen a gap between them, and it's making him anxiously over-analyze things, playing into his own social discomfort in a way Castiel hasn't felt about him since the first days of their relationship, when he was afraid Dean would disappear.

His split-second hesitation goes unnoticed and unremarked by Dean, and Cas slides into the bench seat and folds his hands on top of the table carefully. When Dean drops an arm along his shoulders as soon as he settles, it's reassuring enough for him to ignore Gabriel's eyeroll of disgust, particularly when Jo grins at him and drives an elbow into his side, cheerful and clearly not clued into what they're going to be getting up to. "You guys are adorable." She pauses, brown eyes narrowing slightly, and blows a curl out of her face. "You okay? You look a little pale."

Charlie looks up from her computer, focused on Castiel's answer at the expense of finishing her own excitable chattering with Ash over their technology, and Sam is hanging up the phone and joining the table, apparently also waiting for a response. Even if Castiel were comfortable being under such focused attention he'd be unnerved by it. He understands that Gabriel, Charlie and Sam are concerned about him because of his silence at the hotel, and the others because of potential aftermath of his trial, but he's not prepared for this misplaced attention.

"I'm fine." It's a terse dismissal, and Dean's hand squeezes his shoulder, his stance widening on the seat to press their legs together beneath the edge of the table, anchoring him. Ellen plunks a mug of coffee in front of each of them as she slides in to sit beside Ash, and Cas is grateful for something to do with his hands as Dean clears his throat and points at his little brother, directing everyone's attention where it should be.

"So we're suing the government."

Sam tucks his phone away before grabbing a chair from one of the tables and pulling it over to face them all on the open area of the round table. "Well. No. I mean, _we're_ not. The only person in this room who has a case for it is _you,_ Dean. The rest of us, we would just be helping in different ways."

"Uh-huh." Dean's skepticism is blatant. "So break it down for me. What's my 'case'? I mean, I know things are shitty for Omegas. . . trust me, _I know_ . . . but who do you even sue for that?"

Nodding, Sam gathers himself, sits forward, and braces his forearms on the table between them, giving the entire situation an air of a pre-game huddle with his size and stature looming in on them. "Suing the government's tricky. You can't go after the entire government, you have to go after departments. And some of them, they're pretty much protected against lawsuits. You have to go after the vulnerable parts, and know we can't fix everything all at once, so we have to hit them where it hurts most. I think, _if_ you do this. . ." He knows it's still an 'if,' that the choice is in Dean's hands ". . . You need to go after this in two ways to make an impact and really force a change."

Sam has a rapt audience—rapt apart from his own brother, of course, who stares impatiently at him. He doesn't want flowery speeches, he's not in this for a lecture or a pep talk: to Dean, this is a war council, and Sam needs to spit it out already. "We go after their pocket book, and we go after health and human services." Sam summarizes, so that Dean doesn't kick him for being a geek and dragging this out.

Dean snorts, looking away finally and lifting his coffee to his lips, suddenly dismissive. That clearly wasn't what he'd hoped to hear. "I don't give a shit if I make money off this, Sam. I'm not in it for a paycheck."

Charlie clears her throat, closing her laptop slowly as Dean raises his eyebrow at her questioningly. "The point is _they_ make money on it. I saw the check stub from Alastair, Dean. Between the federal taxes, state taxes, and Detroit's city tax. . . government entities made about_ten grand_, Dean. And that's just off of you. That's just four months, and one person."

"And because of all the population-scare saber rattling, they help _subsidize_ farms and crèches for 'reproductive purposes.' They have for decades, and they don't verify personal consent of the people in them." Sam draws Dean's stare away from Charlie, reasoned and factual—he's not going to beg Dean into this, or guilt him. For the moment everyone else at this table is irrelevant to the two men who banded them together. "They take money from victims, and put it towards creating _more_ _victims_. That's why we go after them for the taxes, and we go after them for the treatment of the Omegas in the places they pour money into. Exposing that is the best way I know to start tearing the system apart, Dean."

Castiel, for his part, narrows his eyes and cants his head, trying to keep even his breathing quiet, otherwise still beneath Dean's arm. He is living proof of how long the crèches have been in action. Of how many years the government has had to reap the financial benefits of captive Omegas on both sides of the transactions: for his Alpha father's purchase of him, and his Omega sire's 'pay' for captivity.

For all of his faults, no one could ever accuse Dean of being a coward. There isn't a lengthy consideration—he dives in head-first, righteous anger flash boiling the way it did the first night Castiel saw him in this bar.

"So how do we do this."

Someday, Castiel hopes he will look back on this as the moment the world began to change for the better. Not a moment of agonizing over a decision, of worrying about the potential reprisals, of seeking personal gain or planning revenge, but the determination of two brothers finding common cause from different perspectives, and then banding others together to follow them.

There's a fierce satisfaction in Sam's eyes as he drags his briefcase out from beneath the table and snaps it open, but there's no back-slapping and patronizing pride out of this family. "With all of us, if you guy's'll help. The first thing is obvious. . . it's the court case. That's you and me, Dean. I think I have a few other people already onboard who would be named clients in the class action suit if you started it, we just need to get them all together." Sam looks up at Dean, as if waiting to see if his brother's going to call him out on discussing other Omegas' stories, after his reaction at the hotel. Dean grimaces, but gestures slightly. The notepad Sam tugs out of the briefcase is clearly not his official legal documents: he hasn't been hired yet, there are no clients whose privacy he could be violating, and there is no case until Dean makes it one. Instead, Sam has personal notes penned across pages: names, information gathered during his searches, people who he's contacted over the years who could help, dry bare-bones information and phone numbers.

"The first one's out of Michigan, actually. His mother contacted a couple of years ago, when he went missing for a little while—she was searching for him, and contacted me because the missing person's searches I did. He'd been a really promising student, top of his class, he was on his way to take his SATs. I watched her tear up the check the guy, Dick Roman, tried to buy her off with after we got him back. Kevin Tran. . . I think you'll like him. His mom's a little scary though."

"All moms are a little scary." Dean mutters, and Castiel inadvertently agrees with a slight nod, earning them all a piercing stare from Ellen across the table that only serves to prove the point. Sam continues quickly, before she can chastise them all, suddenly twelve again for as long as it takes to direct attention away from that slip. Castiel is fairly certain he sees Ellen laugh at their scrambling, before she hides it behind her coffee mug.

"Then there's Gilda Fey. . ."

"The asshole kept her hooded any time they went anywhere. Thought he_owned_ her, didn't want anyone looking at her but him." There's a disgust and anger in Charlie's face that seems out of place on her open features. "She's still in, but she's a little flighty, Sam. I've talked to her about it some over the last couple months . . ."

Jo has an eyebrow arched, leaned forward to see Charlie around Gabriel between them, and Charlie flushes slightly and widens her eyes at Jo. "It helps her to have an Alpha around, sometimes, even if it's just me." For her heats, if Charlie's sudden spike of awkwardness is any indication. "Just a friend. I mean, mostly."

"Wow, talking about the girlfriend to the girl you've been flirting with. Smooth." Gabriel drawls, earning him a punch in the shoulder from Charlie.

"Keep it up. I was_going_ to help you to break into your brother's office to screw him over, too, asshole." Sam's bitchface isn't reserved just for responses to Dean, if the look he shoots Charlie across the table is any indication. ". . .Which Sam by law knows absolutely nothing about. Sorry. Right. Um. Forget I said that part."

"No, I really don't want to forget that part." Gabriel is still eagerly paying attention to this conversation, and Dean's not sure what his angle on this is that he's been invested in the conversation even before the idea of spiting his brother added a savage glee to his interest. "We talking Q to my Bond 'help,' red?"

"The last time you and Lucifer came into conflict we _all_ nearly were arrested, and it took Michael separating you two for you not to end up in the hospital." Castiel interjects with a worried frown that only deepens when Gabriel waves him off.

"Don't try to pin the blame on _me_for that, _you_ threw the first punch. And if we were getting into another fist fight, champ, I'd stand back and let you do it. But if we're talking breaking in, that's _subtlety,_Cassie." Which Castiel is clearly not well known for, but Dean questions Gabriel being even remotely subtle, even in their short acquaintance.

Sam seizes the opportunity to snatch the conversation back from the part he can't let himself be party to, Charlie's complete disregard for privacy laws when it comes to her moral stands and hacking. "I have something else I hope we can get you involved in, Castiel. Basically, we need a consult."

Castiel's hands drop to his lap from the table, and something in his posture shifts; he might have been a priest more than a soldier, but there's something about the angle of his jaw, the stiff way he holds himself when addressed like this, that still seems crisply militaristic.

"You want me available to examine the people within the crèches and farms." It's half a question, but mostly a logical conclusion, confirmed by Sam's slight nod. "Sam, I think it's safe to say that I make a terrible witness . . ."

"I don't believe that, Castiel. I don't know anything about pheromones, but I understood your medical stuff pretty well. I think if you weren't the one on trial, you'd do just fine." Ellen reassures him, and there's something strangely soothing to a mother's level-headed comfort, particularly for a man who has never had the experience. Jo bumps shoulders with him, seconding her mother's opinion, more accepting than he expected from a girl who had been sharpening knives when they met. Dean's family is making _him_ family, and the proof of it is at this table—it's a warm feeling, a sense of permanence to their relationship, but it's also a camaraderie of its own. Castiel hesitantly knocks his shoulder to Jo's in return, winning him a brilliant smile, until Gabriel leans in around Jo to address Castiel in a conspiratorial carrying whisper.

"Novel idea: don't get arrested again, and we don't have to worry about you being neurotic crazy-person in your own defense, bro." He's had eight years to forget what it's like being around family, but Gabriel's quick teasing helps continue unknotting the tightly coiled tension, despite the seriousness of their current conversation. "You can have a pulpit to publicly yammer about pheromones and ants or whatever it was you got obsessed with when we were kids . . ."

"_Bees_, Gabriel. It was bees." Magnificent creatures, with an entire pheromone language that seemed almost magical, like God's unseen little miracles. Then it was a sign of something larger than them, some guiding hand in creation to put so much work into something so small. Now that his faith has shifted, some part of Castiel on reflection still finds them fascinating-so much more attuned than humans and so much more complex than any other creature in their way.

Castiel's fairly certain defending a long-forgotten childhood obsession will only deepen their belief in his instability, though, so he looks back to Sam with as much dignity as he can muster.

"I presume I'd be checking to ensure they weren't being forced into heat . . ." Dean's tense beside him, and Castiel lets his hand rest on Dean's knee, instinctively trying to offer him comfort, but keeping his gaze focused on Sam so his mate's discomfort won't be highlighted to the table. "And ensure their medical condition and treatment. How would you get me in to see them, legally?"

Sam shrugs slightly, his plan still in progress but solidifying through their conversations. "Working on it. I've got a couple connections, and if we could get inspections going I think you could be the representative for us. We need someone who knows the medical and biological aspects, cares about the people there, and wouldn't be swayed by being in that kind of place."

They need a physician who can sense the heats, but not be manipulated with offers of taking advantage of the Omegas, or drawn by the biological pull of them. Even if Castiel had been left with a positive outlook on large portions of Alphas in society in their treatment of Omegas, he understands the dilemma there, and exactly why he's ideal. Finding physicians with the right medical background isn't the difficult part. It's finding an Omega-mated Alpha doctor who supports their cause, and whom they can trust for control. Even denying the sociological negatives to the term, biologically Dean and Castiel _are_ mated. They are a closed pheromone loop, past the point of no return for Castiel.

Castiel darts a glance at Dean, noting the furrows in his brow, the concentration and discontent on his features as he mulls over some other aspect of this, and he answers Sam with an eye to the man at his side. "I don't foresee that being a problem for me."

He would need to control his temper though, when faced with whatever he came across. _That_would be the difficult aspect of it, reminding himself of the greater good served by behaving rationally rather than instinctively. A bridge they can cross when they get there.

While he hasn't said anything in some time, Castiel turns to Dean as he hitches a breath and drops his arm from around Castiel's shoulder finally, bracing his elbow on the table and raking his other hand through his hair. "Look. I appreciate this, all of you. I do. But . . . this isn't your fight."

"Yes it is." Castiel contradicts, but he falls silent again with a look from Dean.

"No, it's_my_fight Cas. You guys want to help make the world a little less shitty for people like me . . . I appreciate it. But that doesn't make it any less_my fight_." Turning slightly, he involves Sam in that, and by extension the rest of the table before them. "You're not doing this _for_ me. You're doing it _with_ me. I'm not gonna just be some frikkin' symbol for the cause."

It's frustrating, trying to explain, because it's a frustrating feeling to begin with and he's always had trouble talking anyway. He doesn't want to come across like an asshole when they're trying to help: he's done that already today, jumped down everyone's throats, and what they're talking about. . . it's good, it needs to happen. But they're still looking at the lawsuit, and in Dean's experience no one gives a shit about following the law anyway. "You want to know what you guys should be doing, if you _really_want to make a difference? Start _looking_ for us. Even if they don't want to be caught up in the shitstorm this lawsuit crap is going to be. . . whenever anybody falls off the map you _look_ for them."

It's strange, but even the introduction of that list on the table in front of Sam is invigorating for Dean: it makes him not alone in this part, even if he's the only Omega at the table. Those names are all people-breathing, thinking, human beings. Even if he has problems doing this crap for himself, he can do it for a boy snatched away from a bright future, or a woman kept in darkness, or the miserable victims of the farms. But his family and most especially his mate, are all still too removed from this; they're still too fixated on _him_ and not enough on the real problems, the scenarios and what-ifs that haunt his nightmares.

"You can sue all the farms and crèches and assholes like Alastair who cut a check you want, but I only got out of there because someone found me. If peoples' families are selling them off, or someone gets snatched off the street and no one looks, or whatever, _someone_oughta be looking for them and not assuming they got wind of some knot they wanted to bend over for and wandered off." The contempt for that stereotype drenches Dean's words. Of all the people at the table, it's Ash who speaks on his heels, piping into the conversation for the first time.

"You're talking population-wide biometrics to get an overview of presented Omegas, then a non-parametric statistical model to deal with the variables while keeping it scalable. . ." The only person at the table with any idea what Ash is taking about is shaking her head slightly, red ponytail swinging as she opens her laptop again.

"You're overcomplicating it. You need to pull existing census data and cross-reference it by police and medical reports. If we connect the. . ."

Charlie and Ash are a study in contrasts, her striped hoodie and t-shirt clashing with his ripped plaid; and with the machines pushed nearly next to each other, the sleek lines of her laptop only highlight how bulky his computer is. For the moment, though, they're on the same page. Dean can't understand a damn thing they're saying but it sounds _hopeful_, it's two geniuses who could pull off the impossible and create some sort of alert system, until the world begins to change to make it irrelevant. Until they start to see Omegas as _people_and stop selling them off like cattle for a quick buck or to get rid of an inconvenience.

It's a start, but it's not enough. Turning away from their excited discussion, he finds Jo staring at him from the other side of Cas, leaned forward with her chin on her fist and her eyebrow raised slightly, and she tilts her head to include her mother in the next statement. "If you think we're staying out of this, you're wrong. If 'Doctor Badass' and the 'Queen of Moons' there find people, then what?"

"Then they need someplace to go." Ellen answers, practical as always, hands folded around her coffee mug and her tone thoughtful. "We can't trust the system, some of them can't go back to their families. We can't do much here, but we oughta start looking at figuring out places."

What would Dean have done if he didn't have Bobby to go to? His next suggestion is impulsive, but it _feels_ right. It feels like contribution to the cause, taking ownership of himself in a way far beyond that emancipation paper in Sam's briefcase could do for him. "If you 'inherited' taking care of me, means you got everything, right Sam?"

Sam's expression is cautious with his agreement; there isn't much _to_ inherit, and Dean knows Sam didn't care whose name was on the will, things would have divided where it made sense. Dean would keep the car, and Winchester Automotive.

"Sell the garage. I'll see if Bobby wants some of the tools, but everything else. . . sell it. Or hell, hand the deed to Ellen and let _her_ do it, or let her convert it. Whatever. If any of us knows how to haggle, it's her. It'll get us a little bit to go off of, get some kind of halfway house or something going." Taking over the garage here was never in Dean's future. He can't come back, can't stomach living in a city with so many bad memories. Sure, running his own place somewhere else would have been nice some day in the future . . . but he _likes_working for Bobby, likes getting to pay attention to the cars and leave the paperwork and making nice with customers to someone else. The next idea to strike him soothes a deep ache, even as he conceives the thought.

"There's a bank, in Detroit. Dad put most of the money from Alastair into it. It's been sitting in savings for five years. . . you bring them a death certificate, take the money, and put it into this. The court case, halfway house, whatever."

That goddamn check has been a thorn in his side for years. Poor or not, he can't use that money without feeling like a whore. But like his father used some of the cash from it to murder Alastair and make him disappear, Dean can take that asshole's check and turn it around against the entire system, and it feels _right_. This way, even the stuff he can't do himself, he's contributing to it.

This_is_ his fight, and he's going to _win_ it.

xXx

They clear out as the bar begins to open around them; Gabriel trailing them into the parking lot having an uncharacteristically quiet conversation on his cell phone, Charlie and Ash disappearing into the back room of the bar to crunch numbers or hack or whatever they do, while Jo passes drinks in to them fondly. Dean's spent long enough with just a coffee in his hand, clearly sober, that Castiel gratefully relinquished the keys to him. Sam and Cas fall into step with Dean without conscious thought as they cross the parking lot toward the Impala, and that's strangely comforting to Dean and he can't explain why.

"I'll ride with you. Figure Charlie can come pick me up in the rental when they're done." Dean smiles faintly to himself as Sam establishes that for this, potentially the last day of their visit, and the first one without a set agenda, Sam's going to stick with Dean. "You want to go over what's going to happen tomorrow? Henriksen has you two scheduled for the morning, and Crowley's going to. . ." Sam's worried reminder is cut off before he can gain much steam, Dean waving him off.

"Crowley's gonna be a prick. It's fine." And it is, strangely. Dean never expected it would be this way, but he feels fine; unafraid, no longer nervous, and lighter than he's been in weeks. The testimony that has loomed over Dean doesn't hold the same weight any more. Cas is _free_. He's free. They're fighting back and taking control of a situation—acting, rather than reacting. Now it's _them_ holding the power. Whether or not those assholes go to jail, Dean has a_plan_ now, another way to fight back. "I've got this."

Sure he wants to make them pay. But they can't hurt him anymore. He can say whatever the hell he wants on the stand, and as long as he doesn't get thrown in jail for contempt of court, he's still going to win. They just don't know it yet. Dean swears he can almost feel his mood catching, buoying Castiel along with him.

Gabriel catches up with them once he's off his phone, and rests a hand on Castiel's shoulder to draw him to a stop. Dean's enough of a bullshitter himself to know that his cheery tone is covering something. "So, Sammy-boy. I didn't want to say anything in there, but you got room in that notebook for one more name?"

Castiel's expression is faintly puzzled when Gabriel meets his eyes as he continues addressing Sam. "Goes by the name Carver Edlund."

Clearly this doesn't have the significance for Cas that it's meant to. "Claire's 'Mr. Carver'? Who moved in with Amelia?"

Gabriel groans dramatically, dropping his hand off of Castiel's shoulder as if he's giving his little brother up as a hopeless cause. "This is the problem with never answering your mail unless it comes from the kid, Cassie. _Eight years_. Is this why you never frikkin' go home?" He smacks the flat of his hand against his brother's head even in response to Castiel's earnest denial of that accusation, a gesture that looks even more ridiculous for the fact that Gabriel has to reach up to do it. He speaks right over Cas, not giving him the chance to offer up excuses for his avoidance of his family. "Amelia's not sleeping with him, or trying to replace Jimmy . . ." Rolling his eyes heavenward, as if asking for patience, Gabriel turns to face Sam, interrupting the two Winchester brothers exchanging confused looks as the conversation goes over their heads as well.

"If you're going after the crèches, he's your guy. Sure, he's a twitchy, nervous shut-in, so he'll probably be about as great on the stand as Cas here, but he's got reasons. He's been writing about what happened to him for 'bout six years or so, now, far as I know. He only got out because some asshole lawyer sued the crèche about him having a 'defective' kid and they cut their losses and dumped him with a little cash and no one to help."

"His real name's Chuck Shurley. . ."

_This_ name clearly does have the impact Gabriel expected earlier. Castiel sucks in a breath and goes completely still next to Gabriel, blue eyes wide, staring down at his older brother.

". . .And I told him his jackass runaway son would get his ass around to finally introducing himself, and drop him a line to talk about this court case stuff."

Castiel's father, his _Omega_ father. They'd been in the same building for the first six years of Castiel's life, and he'd been too young to know to ask for him. The idea of family outside of his twins had been so alien until they'd been brought to live under the same roof with Michael and Lucifer and Gabriel and the others. He didn't realize until much later that his childhood was being spent in the shadow of the world's prejudices, so far removed from 'normal.'

"You found him?" Castiel sounds younger in surprise, and it's probably the first time Dean's really recognized him as the _baby brother_ in his own family, the Sam to Gabriel's Dean. There's a note of hope, like Gabriel has just casually confirmed another of Castiel's 'fairytales,' that his persistently lingering albeit now damaged faith still told him God would have had a hand in, that it would turn out in the end: that his other father got away, and went on to live a happy life somewhere.

Dean knows it's not that simple; there's not a happily ever after to life after that, but there's recovery and there's _life_ still, and hell. Where there's life there's hope, or some other overly positive statement Dean's had regurgitated to him over the years.

"_Emmanuel_found him, Cassie. He started looking after the funeral. Which you'd know if you hadn't ditched us, and ditched him." Gabriel corrects him, and he's not trying to be gentle with him now. Because maybe Emmanuel had Gabriel and Balthazar and Inias who would keep tabs on him, Michael and Lucifer who would send him Christmas cards or answer the phone, Daphne to share his life with-but he lost _both_ of his twins. He lost Jimmy to illness and Castiel to avoidance almost immediately after, and so he set out to find their missing link.

"You should pick up the phone sometimes and call home, bro."

xXx

"Keep that up and you're gonna break it." Castiel glances up at Dean from the back seat, where he has once again settled to allow Sam the space beside his brother in the Impala, the bag beside him crinkling slightly as he pulls his hand out of his pocket once again.

"I'm not. . ." Not taking his phone out of his pocket and turning it in his hands contemplatively every few minutes? Not doing it their entire trip to Walmart for supplies Castiel that barely paid attention to as he pushed the cart? Not going to break the phone? He's not sure which, but Dean's eyes in the rearview are keen and not in the least bit fooled, and Sam turns in his seat to rest his elbow against the back, frowning slightly at Castiel, empathetic and concerned, and all it does is still Castiel's fidgeting completely, setting him straight in his seat again.

"Are you going to be okay with this? Us calling him up on this?"

"That's not really my decision." It's a surprise how quickly that response came, without it being rehearsed, without first considering Dean and his responses when speaking about his Omega father. "If he wants to be part of this court case, I will support him in it just as I will Dean." He just doesn't _know_ him. He knows nothing about him except his name, and even carefully combing his memories of Claire's words he can't draw together a picture of his personality, or guess at features. Would he recognize anything of himself in them? How much did a crèche really take of the Omegas they used as captive human incubators, in creating someone like him? Like _them_.

It's not Chuck that Castiel is considering calling first, though. The weight of abandoning his twin is sitting heavy on his shoulders today, for not the first time in eight years. But for the first time in eight years he has an excuse to call, something that anchors them both outside of the still painful wound that is the loss of Jimmy.

Running the flat of his hand down his jaw, Castiel stares out the window briefly, aware of Dean's eyes on him in the rearview. He settles on digging into the bags beside him, trying to sort out what it is they're actually up to, keeping himself busy to signify how little he wants to discuss this right now, and the Winchester brothers allow it—he has no doubt they know avoidance when they see it, and they exchange a significant look that he couldn't begin to entirely collect their entire layered silent conversation out of.

Beef jerky. Chips. General road trip food. Sharpies. Packing tape. Labels that Castiel vaguely remembers Dean complaining to Sam about not needing.

"You tackle the kitchen Sam, just load it all up to haul, Ash can eBay it for the cause or whatever. I got enough in Sioux Falls. I'll get the garage, call Bobby so he can chew my ass out for him getting all his updates from Ellen instead of me through this, then distract him by talking tools he might want." Glancing up at the rearview, he meets Castiel's eyes in the mirror again, as they turn towards Winchester automotive. "Cas, you gotta figure out how many books you're taking, man, and leave room in the trunk for the rest of our crap."

"But first. . . maybe you oughta make a phone call."


	35. Chapter 35

The music from the garage is distant enough not to be overpowering, but loud enough that Castiel knows it's there—the thrumming baseline of classic rock deliberately keeps Dean from being able to eavesdrop, but is a notch or two below the level Dean prefers when he's fixing up cars. He could hear Sam and Dean yelling up the stairs to each other, a comfortable camaraderie he could only envy. Throughout the phone call Dean's music and distant voice were there for him, like a hand on his shoulder, and with it the knowledge that Dean was still keeping an eye on him even if he was giving Cas a little bit of privacy.

It's comforting and noninvasive, and he needs both right now.

The wispy clouds above the river are the color of wood smoke, stained by the ash in the atmosphere. Castiel frowns at the thought of them being tainted by association, the ash a spreading poison that sits like silt over the wall beneath him, clogs the river before him, abrades their skin like tiny shards of broken glass, and in the wrong conditions fills their lungs with each breath. It's a melancholy thought for the doctor, but for once he wishes that he could so easily explain the weight on his chest and how hard it is to speak.

When he swipes his fingers across his phone screen to end the call, they leave behind a streak in the humidity of him, left behind by the damp palm that's been clamped to the back of the case and the heat of his breath as he struggled to find words. It never used to be hard. That supposedly was the benefit, the trade-off for a childhood where they were all the others had, the trade-off for being mistaken for each other later in life. They're twins, they were supposed to be able to understand each other.

It's a few minutes before he hears the crunch of Dean's boots on the gravel behind him, and Castiel straightens slightly at the signal, finally lowering the phone from where he's been resting it against his chin to cram it into his pocket. He glances over at Dean as he drops down onto the retaining wall beside Cas, long bowed legs making the motion fascinating, somehow inelegant and graceful at once, knocking the ash on the wall off in a cloud as he ends in a comfortable sort of sprawl, wordlessly offering Cas one of two bottles of beer.

Dean smells like sweat from the hard work of hauling boxes and dragging equipment-smells like _Dean_ without the overwhelming 'Irish springs' or 'old spice' scents to drown him out, and Castiel's brain can't quite distinguish between Dean after hard labor and Dean after sex. It's disconcerting. Out of place as it washes over him, not quite chasing away the discomfort of the phone call, just adding a layer of inappropriately timed distraction to it—he _wants_ to brood on this, to spend time digging into his own head. Dean derails him. He doesn't know if he should welcome it, but he can't help it anymore and he doesn't regret that.

The beer is cheap and cold, the bottle wet and slippery from floating in melting ice, and he sips it silently as Dean scoops up a rock from beside them and slings it into the river, where it sinks beneath the sluggish gray surface of the shallows. "Who'd you decide to call first? Your dad or your brother?"

"My father." The word 'dad' feels wrong, a title for someone that he has never had in his life, and he can't make himself say it yet. "He screens all of his phone calls, though. I left a message, but I don't know if I should expect a response. And then I called Emmanuel." Castiel sighs, rolling the bottle between his fingers. "It was very. . . stilted."

Inexplicably, the corner of Dean's mouth quirks up slightly, though he isn't looking to Castiel. "Cas, dude… don't you think you kinda shoulda been expecting that?"

Castiel frowns down at his feet, shrugging in a useless raise and drop of his shoulders, guilt pressing down on him. He's surprised Emmanuel answered at all, come to think of it. Surprised his brother would quietly excuse himself from his classroom in the middle of a lecture and step out into the hall. Castiel knows he did, though, leaving his teacher's aide to drone on behind him about narrative forms, her stray words and phrases through the open door seeping into the silences of their conversation. The low roar of students leaving the class, calling goodbyes out to 'Professor Allen,' was distraction enough to break the conversation into awkward farewells, Emmanuel's request for him to call again soon, to keep in touch, just shy of a plea eight years too late.

Castiel's words grate against the rawness of his throat. "You're right. I shouldn't have left. . ."

Dean jostles him with a bump to his shoulder, and Castiel lets himself be rocked in place on the wall by it without resisting. "No, not _that_. I mean, seriously, you're not exactly a great conversationalist when you're upset. . ."

Baleful eyes narrow, and Castiel's voice is flat. "Thank you for that, Dean. That's very comforting."

". . . And by what little you've said about your brothers, Emmanuel sounds like the one most like you, far as that goes, right? So I'm surprised either of you got past 'hello' to begin with." Dean jibes, ignoring Castiel's faintly wounded retort to finish his comment. After a moment, Cas inclines his head in a grudging agreement at the assessment.

"It was never my intention to hurt him.I knew I would, though. I knew it would hurt us both, and Gabriel and Inias and Balthazar as well, but I chose to leave regardless. I decided for all of us. . ."

"No. You decided for you." Dean's voice is firm, and Castiel's brows climb his forehead as he looks to his boyfriend. He expected Dean of all people would believe that as well, so protective of his right to make his own decisions. "Don't look so surprised, Cas. You're a grown up. You made a decision for yourself, went back to school, became a doctor. Does it suck that you didn't keep in touch? Yeah. It does. And if you did that to me I'd probably hunt you down and demand an explanation. . ."

"I wouldn't. Not to you." Castiel interjects, his voice firm and unwavering. Dean's lips twitch into a sad half smile, and he shakes his head slightly, lifting his own beer to his lips. The words come out somehow muffled and amplified by the glass bottle against his lips, distorted and softened.

"Don't make promises like that, Cas." They're a mess, the pair of them. Neither wants to be left alone, not really, but they're both the ones that do the leaving. How can Dean assure Castiel that he won't bolt, when it took this entire mess to keep him here? How can Cas tell Dean that he'd never leave, when Dean knows he uprooted his entire life without a word of goodbye to the most important people in it?

He _knows_ how. Castiel opens his mouth, closes it again with a click of his teeth, and looks out over the river. He knows what to say, but this isn't something Dean wants that way.

He knows Dean well enough by now that he should have known that would only draw attention to it.

"…You really are stuck with me, aren't you?" Dean's lips have twisted, revealing the worry lines that have become so familiar, a sign of Dean's concern for him. This is what he was trying to avoid with his silence, but Dean is _perceptive,_ he's figured Castiel out to an unnerving degree. "Were you gonna tell me what was going on at the hotel this morning?"

"Did you really need me to tell you, Dean? You're my _mate_." Dean's jaw twitches faintly at the word, an involuntary flex of muscle, but Castiel continues in the same low grumble. Irritation is finally bleeding through; Castiel's nerves are frayed and he doesn't know if he can handle this conversation taking a left turn. Not when he doesn't know if they're about to veer off of a conversational cliff. "I am in love with you, we are romantically involved, _and_you are my mate. I realize that you resent that term. I'm trying to respect that. But you also understand that it is more than just a term, and it effects _both_ of us. I _know_that you do."

Oxytocin and dopamine. Mating bonds, ties of love and compatibility and emotion, but something more as well; Castiel had said as much, breathed the words into Dean's skin, their significance and meaning lost in the haze of Dean's heat. _The addictive centers of the brain._It inherently implies a reaction if that is cut off entirely, rejection forcing a sudden withdrawal.

The silence that settles over them isn't comfortable, this time. Castiel is leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, beer bottle dangling from his loose grip between them.

"So this is it." Castiel shrugs slightly, nodding at the same time, until Dean continues. "You bolt, or get sick of me, I'm gonna be a social reject mated Omega. I leave, or something happens to me, you're going to turn into one of those sad-sack Alphas who falls apart without their Omega. Chemical addiction, withdrawal or whatever."

Castiel's breath hisses out of him in a sigh, and his shoulders pull in tighter at the perceived criticism. "No. Though I have no personal experience in the matter, I assume _any_ breakup has emotional and physical consequences. Ours would just include one more complication. It would be more difficult for me, physiologically, as the receiving partner. . ." Dean snorts, adding contradicting innuendo, but Castiel ignores it. ". . . but that doesn't necessitate you staying with me if you want to leave. I won't be your. . . your 'leash,' Dean. I don't need you to stay out of obligation."

He can feel Dean's eyes on him, hear the wet swallow of his beer as he considers responding, the indrawn breath as he forces himself to switch tracks mentally. Finally, Dean bumps against his shoulder again, but this time doesn't pull away-he's warm against Cas's side, and his work-roughened hand slides and catches along the borrowed denim encasing Cas's legs before squeezing his thigh comfortingly. It's his voice that's soothing in its familiarity, though, a deliberate note of humor to dispel the sudden tension and to drag them away from this unexpected aside. "Pretty much everything you own is mixed in with my crap and on its way to my trunk. You stole all my books, and only reason I know whose clothes are whose any more is 'cause you've got more pleated slacks than anyone under the age of sixty's got a right to. And we've got enough on our plate without this. We picked a crappy time to have a conversation planning out a breakup we got no idea is ever happening."

Castiel snorts quietly in agreement, and doesn't point out that it wasn't exactly _him_ spearheading that conversation. Dean knows. The graze of his lips to Cas's hairline, breath gusting through his hair, it feels like an apology as much as Dean's able to considering this is something he's clearly worried about. Cas can't leave it there, though. He twists in place and curls his hand to the back of Dean's neck, thumb catching beneath the bolt of his jaw to direct him into place, tilting his face down for a kiss.

Dean's lips are soft, worried between his teeth as he thought and moistened by the beer and the swipe of his tongue. Castiel has just enough time to taste them, to lap his lips around Dean's soft lower lip, before the blare of a car horn jerks him away, threatening their perch on the retaining wall as Dean thunks their foreheads together in surprise.

"Son of a _bitch!"_

"I am _not_ packing all your stuff _and_ hauling it by myself, Dean." Sam's return volley seems as loud as the Impala's horn, amplified within the cavern of the open garage, his hand still braced over the center of the steering wheel through the open window threatening to break them apart again. Considering he can see the slant of Sam's mouth and the challenge in his raised brow, Castiel is certain Sam can tell even from there that Castiel is attempting to murder him with a stare.

The angry Alpha look has no effect. Sam's amusement is obvious. Castiel groans quietly and lays his forehead against Dean's shoulder, his voice muffled there. "Your brother has terrible timing."

"Yeah he does." Dean agrees, and Castiel can feel the ripple of muscle beneath his cheek, knows that Dean is gesturing at Sam, continuing the silent conversation the two Winchesters seem to have between them. "He's not entirely wrong though. C'mon, Cas. Help me up."

It's not the request to get up that has Cas raising his head and lifting an eyebrow, but the request to help. He unfolds from the stone wall beneath them and extends a hand, clasping arms with Dean and hauling him to his feet and watching as his mate grimaces slightly.

Cas did that. He put that added stiffness to Dean's bowlegged gait, and is responsible for the nearly inaudible grunt as Dean stands off of the hard surface and stoops again to gather their beer bottles, and for the widening of his stance on the bench seat of at Harvelles earlier. "Stop thinking about sex." Dean grumbles as he expertly chucks the beer bottles into the dumpster with a clang and tinkling of breaking glass, and then dusts the ash off of the seat of his jeans, the worn denim stained attractively now, softened and lightened by the clinging dust only highlighting the curve of Dean's ass.

"I wasn't." Castiel lies, aware that his face is betraying him, color staining his cheeks and arousal roughening his voice. He _shouldn't_ be thinking about it, so soon after the phone calls. He should still be dwelling, miserable and inconsolable, but somehow Dean's managed to slip past that again. He's fairly sure it's deliberate, too; Dean knows now the effect he has. It has its drawbacks, but this is the perk, and Dean seems comfortable using the distraction he poses to help keep Castiel from falling into a funk.

"You were." Dean contradicts him, infuriatingly knowing as he turns and crowds into Cas's space with the self-assurance of ownership. There is no personal space, it's community property between the two of them, the air between them too warm again. "Dude, there's no use lying about that. You're getting off on knowing I'm still feeling it from this morning. Pheromones, or whatever, I swear there's some kinda telepathic connection between our dicks."

Castiel pulls a face, disturbed by that image, but buoyed by Dean's laugh at his expense. "Whatever. You know what I mean."

"I think what you mean is you were just reminded of being sore from sex, became inexplicably aroused by it, and wanted to blame me for both." Castiel frames Dean's face with his hands, resting his thumb lightly over Dean's lips to silence a comeback, the faint lines of his eyes deepening as he squints assessingly at Dean. "Are you okay?"

Dean nips at the pad of his thumb, blowing off the question posed to him and freeing himself up to answer it. "Cas, _I'm_fine. Are you? It's a lot. It's okay if you're not. . . y'know. Okay." There's a deep worry laced in the question, revealed in the seriousness of Dean's gaze, the crease between his brows that Cas stretches his neck and presses his lips to after a moment, trying to erase the sign of Dean's concern with affection. The shock of finding out Lucifer's involvement, the fury that followed, the sharp snap of his temper and the shocking cold of being abandoned by his mate, the tension of watching his family, friends and boyfriend start a civil rights movement at a bar. Reconnecting with his brother, and failing to connect to a father who has existed only as myth to a lonely trio of boys who had fallen apart since.

"I will be." Castiel shrugs, and it's answer enough. Dean slips his arms around Cas's shoulder and hauls him in finally, settling the Alpha into the circle of his arms in a hug that Castiel returns after a moment's hesitation, letting himself settle against his mate. He knows Sam is impatiently shoving things around in the garage, but they both need this. "I want this to be normal, between us." Castiel eventually admits, hesitant in his confession. "I want to have entire weeks when we can forget about arrests and trials and sideways looks. I want. . ."

He ends on a feeble raise and drop of his shoulders beneath the encircling ring of Dean's arms, that squeeze him gently in warning. "We might." Dean doesn't sound entirely sure of that himself, either, though. "Might also be getting death threats and court case bullshit for the next decade or so, 'cause civil rights shit sucks for the people pushing it. You said you were cool with that, Cas, or I'd've. . ."

"You'd have done it anyway." Castiel finishes for him, but it's not chastising. He's _proud_of Dean for that, for taking this stand. "And you should." There's a thought, tickling at the back of Castiel's conscience, a battle of his own in this fight Dean has found himself leading. His mate, soon his father, his brother, and everyone Dean loves, are all in this together. He can do more. He _will_. "And so should I."

Dean shoots him a questioning look as they break apart, two quick blasts of the Impala's horn signals the end of whatever time Dean had negotiated for them, and he finds himself tugged along, tucking his arm around Dean's waist. "You tell me before you do anything stupid, Cas." Dean warns him as they fall into step, shoes crunching over the gravel. "You make me chase you down to your brother's place or something, I'm going to kick your ass."

"I still want him to suffer…" Castiel admits, the burr of repressed anger creeping back into his voice at speaking about it.

"Dramatic." Dean snorts. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

"…But that wasn't what I was thinking of." There's no sense keeping secrets, drawing this out between them. Their lives are intertwined, and this plan finding root in Castiel's thoughts may be his, but it's still part of Dean's war. "I need to go by the church, before we leave Lawrence."

Castiel's faith in God has been mending, the miracle that is Dean falling into his life when he was in many ways still floundering is something to give thanks for . . . and he once again believes these things happen as they do for a reason. Something brought this little band together, and put him among them.

"I need to find out the name of the parish in Sioux Falls. And I need to get a message to the Pope. I believe that having him free me from my vows is something that the Vatican may want to see to sooner rather than later."

Dean is taking on the government. From the sound of it, Sam will be taking it to the news. That leaves one other major entity that guides culture in this matter. Law. Media. _Religion._

Castiel is still a priest—will always be a priest in some ways, by Catholic doctrine. He knows the workings of the church as an institution, knows their ways and their hierarchy, and he knows now that he has to write to the Vatican, as he put off for years because he had no _reason_ to before Dean. The church would be better cutting what ties with him that they can, and releasing him from the vows of chastity that he now disregards, and he can use that last opportunity to speak directly to the Holy See.

Dean cocks an eyebrow at him as they break, somehow understanding what Cas leaves unsaid as he works out the details mentally. Sam looks between them, lost at only catching the tail end of their words, ignoring the customary punch to his shoulder from his brother for being a brat about their having any alone time. "What's going on?"

"Pretty sure 'Father Castiel' there is starting some kind of holy war." Dean throws out, casually as you please, and it makes Castiel smile how easily Dean rolls with the idea, trusts him with it. The church has meant so much to Castiel's life. . . he wants it to be a place that someday may consider accepting Dean for who he is, and Castiel for loving him.

"Okay. . .?" Sam may be a legal know-it-all, but no Winchester is going to ever claim to be a religious expert of any sort. It's clear he wants to know more, but that's a conversation for another time—another potential turn-off that will derail them just by virtue of how differently they look at faith.

Dean brushes it aside and jabs a finger at the boxes, popping the trunk. "Figure out what books we're taking, Cas, we gotta get them in first or they'll crush everything else. Sammy, make sure you leave out dishes enough for dinner tonight, I'm cooking the steaks. Hell, we're cooking everything. Last meal at the old homestead or whatever."

They're leaving this place in the dust tomorrow after their testimony; all three of them starting new chapters in their lives. Sam with the lawsuit that will likely come to define him and a child who he will dedicate his life to, Dean with the civil rights battle that will change the world around them, and Castiel making the decision to _stay_ with Dean, to eke out a life for himself and stand up with the Winchesters.

They're teetering at the edge of the unknown, and poised now not to fall, but to dive.

xXx

Dinner becomes a lively affair: Dean hauls an old barrel grill down by the river, and eventually it seems half a cow and everything from the freezer is cooking merrily on it as Castiel, Gabriel, Charlie and Sam dutifully create an assembly line for grillable sides, trying to empty out every last bit of food from the place so nothing goes to waste. They eat sprawled on the bank, exhausted from packing and hauling, Dean in a canvas chair and Cas leaning against his knee, Gabriel's feet annoyingly planted on his outstretched shin just to bother him, Charlie opposite on another chair and Sam perched atop an overturned bucket, his too-long legs making it comical to behold.

Castiel's phone stays silent, with no return call from his father, but he tries not to focus on it. The family he has surrounding him is distraction enough, and by the time Gabriel goes to leave, hauling himself up the retaining wall to teasing jibes from Dean about his height, Cas is almost ready to admit how much he will miss his brother once he leaves, his flight and return to his life and his work and his plot against Lucifer with Charlie meaning this is the last they'll see of each other, until. . . Until. Castiel isn't sure a time frame, but there is one, now. Not a nebulous someday or maybe.

He follows Gabriel's shadow toward the gravel drive, hands tucked into the back pockets of the jeans he borrowed from Dean, finger worrying the hole in the pocket a little wider. "I'll call." He says out of nowhere, earning him one of Gabriel's rueful grins.

"Yeah, you'd better, asshole." His older brother jerks his pointed chin at the Winchesters still on the bank of the river behind them as he leans back against the obnoxiously yellow rental car. "I like him. He's not good enough for you, but he's got guts and he gets family. Think he might kick your ass _for_me if you turn tail again."

Castiel half nods, half shrugs in agreement, and then finds himself hauled into a brief hug, Gabriel's grip and strength always surprising, the thump between his shoulder blades punishing. "Don't be an idiot."

"You don't get _caught_ being an idiot." Castiel counters easily, reveling in the guffaw it wins him from the brother his humor was always measured against and found lacking. "I want to know what happens with Lucifer."

"Yeah, yeah. A little faith in me, Cassie. If anyone can fuck with his head and fuck up his shit. . ." He jerks both thumbs at himself indicatively, taking the title of being the most conniving of the lot of them with pride. "I want to know what happens at the trial. Met the asshole at the courthouse; he was coming onto your boyfriend there pretty hard . . ." Castiel's sudden defensive posture must be more obvious than it feels, that knowledge surprising him; Dean never mentioned a confrontation at the courthouse. Gabriel whistles between his teeth, both eyebrows climbing his forehead. "Woah. Down boy. We had it."

He can hear the crunch of gravel right behind him, knows Dean's there before an arm hooks around him, Sam and Charlie following past him to join the conversation, the evening winding down. "What's got a bee in your bonnet." Dean's been laughing and it colors his words still, the comfort he takes in family seeming to spill over from him, to wrap around Castiel. The word choice is deliberate, teasing over the idle bee comment at the bar, and Gabriel seems momentarily triumphant in knowing he's passed along enough backstory to ensure someone will give his little brother hell on his behalf.

"I mentioned the thing at the courthouse with the asshole, because I didn't realize you were keeping shit from my brother." Of course, Gabriel's loyalties are simultaneously made clear, though Dean's lack of defense backs him down.

"Didn't think about it," Dean shrugs. "Been busy. Hardey cornered me in the bathroom," Dean explains to Cas, Sam and Charlie. "Didn't try to touch me, just being an asshole. Admitted being the one to tear up your place, Cas, then started jerking it in the urinal. I said a few things, he got pissed and was going to follow me out of the bathroom to take a swing, then Gabriel rammed him with the door.

"Did anyone else see?" There's an excitement on Sam's face that is a little disturbing and a lot out of place, and Dean makes a noise of disgust.

"Dude, I wasn't _watching_ or inviting an audience for that . . ."

Sam makes a face, revolted by the misinterpretation of his meaning. He wasn't asking if Hardey got an audience for masturbating. "No, him going into or coming out of the bathroom. Did anyone see?"

Gabriel raises two fingers indicatively. "Me. Heard parts of it too. Probably a couple of cops at the end of the hall saw him come out. Saw them think about coming toward me when I knocked him on his ass, before I sat down and made it seem like an accident."

"The main corridor has cameras, boss." Charlie pipes in excitedly, and Dean's pretty sure he's missing something here, when the redhead grins at him. "We got him violating a restraining order, Dean. With witnesses and a camera. Going in, fine. Its public space, accidents happen. Staying when he knew you were in there by yourself, making a thing out of it. . . we can get him on that. Maybe throw in indecency, harassment. . . Gabe, you mind me riding to the hotel with you, get your statement before you head out in the morning?" She's already digging out her phone, ready to record, and Sam is fishing his out of his pocket to make a call.

"I'll get ahold of Victor, see if we can get that considered tomorrow, and if he wants to swing by the hotel himself. . ."

Dean is spluttering faintly, holding a hand up to still this sudden flurry. "So what, he's _Victor_ now? And you two exchange numbers and are buddies? You remember him trying to send Cas to _prison_, right?" Dean's righteous indignation on his behalf makes Castiel duck his head to hide his expression from Dean, his mate's fingers pressing hard into his hip, tugging him the inch closer against his side, instinctively protective.

"He was just doing his job." Sam reminds Dean, already scrolling through his contacts. "And tomorrow he'll be on _your_ side, trying to put the other guys in jail and keep Crowley off of you. We need to work with him, Dean." Sam claps a hand to Dean's shoulder, ignoring Dean's wince this time, and flashes him a smile. "It's gonna work, Dean. You and Cas should get some rest. Meet you at the courthouse. Give a little lead time, he's gonna want to talk to you both, I'm sure."

"I'll bring breakfast!" Charlie offers, already rounding Gabriel's rental car, ducking into the yellow monstrosity. Dean releases Cas to follow Sam towards the other car, still bitching, and for just a moment it's Cas and Gabriel again, his brother watching Dean in amusement as he digs a hand into his pocket.

"Okay. You can keep him. When you two start popping out overly-serious, cranky little babies, I expect a visit. This I gotta see." Gabriel practically cackles when he turns to find Castiel glaring at him, either because he's proving the point or because Cas has flushed again, only Gabriel could say. "C'mon. I wouldn't go near Luci or Mike's brats if you paid me, I'm never having kids of my own, and Claire went and grew up on us. You're up, man."

"I don't think..." He knows Dean isn't ready for that, watches him down his birth control pill every morning with an air of daring Cas to take issue with it, defiant against anything that could reduce him to being just 'an Omega' in anyone's eyes. And then there's Castiel's own issues. He's murdered with his bare hands, knows he could do it again if he had to. Then there's his upbringing, in a place dedicated to churning out babies like a factory, clinical and sterile, infants in incubators and beneath lamps to keep them warm, feeding kept to schedules and affection reserved for when the parents who purchased them came to visit, to ensure they wouldn't bond with the staff there in some way, wouldn't grow attached. Then the influence of his older brothers, once they were taken out of there, still stuck in the same mindset as a family patriarch Castiel would never meet.

Dean is terrified of being used just for his biology. Castiel is afraid he could never be what a child needs. But some part of him wants it, he's realizing now, wants to meet the people their children would become, hold their baby in his arms and know it came from both of them, could become the best of both of them. He won't speak of it, _can't,_ with Dean or with Sam, but it's apparently part of the Fairytale ending he has concocted for them. Someday, he hopes they'll be there.

Castiel shrugs, cutting his gaze back to his brother and unsure of when he started staring at Dean rather than looking at Gabriel. Gabriel is watching him shrewdly, tucking his wallet back into his jeans. "Well, whenever you figure out the rest of that sentence, you call me. Hell, call Emmanuel. Or Inias. For you, Balthazar'd probably even actually answer the phone. You gotta mock his accent for me, ever since he moved back he's bad as he was when we got him outta that British crèche, before you three moved in; it's frikkin' hysterical. Just. . . it wasn't all bad, Cassie. Try to remember that."

Gabriel clasps hands with his brother in a shake that transfers something from his grip to Castiel's, slapping his other hand to Cas's shoulder companionably as Dean grumbles his way across the drive to rejoin them. Pulling away he addresses his brother's mate, pointing accusingly at Castiel. "Keep him out of trouble."

"No promises," Dean snorts falling in beside Cas again as Gabriel slips into the rental. "Don't get arrested."

Gabriel winks, but makes no promises either, and after a moment the sound of engines fade, leaving Castiel and Dean alone for the evening. Castiel finally opens his hand again to find the folded photograph Gabriel slipped him at the end with his handshake, acutely aware of Dean leaning into his shoulder, unabashedly stealing a look.

A crease mars the center of the image, running through Gabriel's shoulder and the open doorway behind him into the home they shared in Castiel's childhood. Directly to his right, Gabriel's arm slung around his shoulder, Lucifer smirks faintly at something he's said, unaware that Gabriel has thrown devil horns behind his head. Beside them, Michael is glaring at them both in exasperation, clearly trying to organize the cabal of his brothers for this shot and being ignored. Raphael is speaking to Uriel, a hand on his shoulder, pointing at a skinny preteen Balthazar, smoothing down his shirt, primping before the picture. At their feet on the steps, Inias, only three years older than them, is leaned in to speak to one of the triplets, Emmanuel-always to Jimmy's right, Cas to his left, the three of them bunched together as a single unit. They're so small, still. Barely school aged, Jimmy's scraped knee visible in his Catholic school shorts, Emmanuel's clip-on tie missing, and Castiel at the edge of the frame, anchored in place beside Jimmy, both of them turned to look up at Michael, listening to instruction, Castiel dutifully and Jimmy incredulously, the three of them so close together their shoulders touch.

"I remember this." Castiel mutters, squinting down at the image. "Gabriel tampered with the timer on the camera. It was the first picture with all of us."

They're impossibly young, all of them. Michael was barely old enough to drink as the oldest, Gabriel was maybe seventeen, and as the youngest the triplets are round-cheeked children. Gabriel's prank captured their family as it really was before the shot for Christmas cards; disorganized, chaotic, dissimilar as they could be as half-siblings, falling together in their groups and cliques.

"Huh." Dean leans in to peer closer, naturally curious, and his lips twitch into a full smile. "You were a cute kid." He taps his finger to Castiel unerringly in the picture, without needing to ask for him to tell them apart for him. He _sees_ Cas, knows him, and Castiel could kiss him for that, wishes he'd had that years ago, had Dean in his life from the start.

After a moment, he tucks the photograph into his pocket and leads them back towards the garage. Boxes fill the bays, neatly stacked and labeled, ready to be sold. The Impala sits low on her tires, loaded up and ready for them to leave, and Dean trails his fingertips along her gleaming metal skin like a lover as he passes her, promising her they'll get back on the road soon.

They're going to leave together. Move in together. This is their future life waiting to unfold at the end of the road.

Castiel can't quite help crowding Dean up against the car as the garage door lowers behind them, capturing his face in cupped hands and kissing him, picking up where they left off to pack and move them. It's comfortable, slow, sinking into each other, lips and hands their only point of contact until Dean twists his fingers in Cas's belt loops and pulls him closer, letting himself be trapped against the warm familiarity of his beloved car.

"Sap." Dean chuffs without really meaning it as Castiel brushes his thumbs over his cheekbones, dropping his lips to kiss the jut of Dean's chin, along the curve of his jaw, nosing along the vulnerable skin of his neck as Dean tilts his head to bare it to him. He slides his hands down the column of his mate's throat, pleased when Dean doesn't tense at it, doesn't shy away like he expects Castiel to hurt him, and he lets his hands continue their journey along Dean's shoulders and smoothing back, a palm coming to rest over the bruise he knows he left on Dean's skin.

"I want to see."

Dean opens his eyes again, amusement clear in them, cocking one eyebrow. "Admiring your handiwork now, Cas, or playing doctor? Either way you got a lot more than my shoulder to look at, Doc."

Castiel tucks in closer, ignoring Dean's look to bite gently at the thrumming pulse beneath his skin, laving his tongue over it to ease the momentary sting, his hands moving over Dean's chest, now, palms then fingers sliding over responsive nipples he can feel beneath the thin fabric, before he gathers it all up at Dean's waist, waiting for permission to tug the shirt free. "Then I'll see that too."

Dean doesn't answer him in words, but he does lift his arms to let Castiel tug the shirt off of him, tossing it into the open window of the car, where it joins the folded blankets and the crammed in throw pillows from the couch, draping over the cooler tucked into the footwell, ready for them to leave.

The ring of bruise on Dean's shoulder is a nearly perfect imprint of Castiel's teeth, purple and tender, and Castiel presses his lips over the warm skin of it gently. When Dean's breath hitches, his body shifting encouragingly, Castiel drags his teeth over it without biting down, the angle wrong from the front. He's marked Dean, but he knows this will heal without a scar; he didn't break the skin. He came close, and even now some part of him wants something that will _stay,_that would tell any Alpha to look at Dean that he's taken. Off limits. Claimed.

That's such a small step away from a brand, from deliberate scarring, from a collar. It's all the same instinct, and he won't act on it. Won't let himself become that. Dean belongs to himself, and that's as it should be. But he belongs _with_ Castiel, as he'd said on the dock.

For now his affection is painted into Dean's skin, impermanent and fading if Dean wants it to, and he knows that much is allowed; Dean spent so long in the back of this car doing the same to Castiel. Now it's there between them in the bite mark on Dean's shoulder, and the small bruises Castiel can see at Dean's waist. He drops to his knees on the dirty garage floor, catching Dean's hips in his hands so he can press a kiss to the bruises his fingers left behind as well, gentle to contrast the roughness of their last few rounds of sex, the desperation that had driven them there. He can see the edge of another bruise at Dean's hip, where the jeans hang low, and he peers up at Dean for permission as his hands travel to the button fly, Dean's erection trapped and straining beneath the material.

"Hot Alpha on his knees in front of me." Dean mutters, impatient at Cas pausing for direction again, rocking his hips forward impatient and needy. "You need a signed waiver or something, Cas?"

"Would you? What would you give permission for in that waiver? What am I allowed to take whenever I want?" Castiel asks lowly, his voice dark and rich, breath washing over Dean's skin. He leans forward to press a kiss over Dean's belly as he slowly unbuttons his pants, overtaken by the image of it rounded in pregnancy, the softness of him pulled taut over their children. Anyone who looked at Dean then would know he was mated, know he was loved.

The borrowed jeans are growing too confining, and he feels his own cock give an interested twitch at that fantasy. He wants to put Dean back on his knees, the way he was last night, and knot him until he catches, trap his seed there, knot him again and again until it takes, until Dean is full of him. He wants Dean to _want_that even more, though, wants him to share that dream, and he doesn't yet. Even in his Heat, his body begging for just that, it was the last thing on Dean's mind. Knowing that makes it easier for Castiel to tamp down on that instinct, cursing his brother for putting the idea in his because he's set on the permanence of them doesn't mean that Dean will be. But he wants it all. Instead, he turns his attention to where it should be, tugging jeans and boxers down Dean's legs to bunch at his boots, hobbling him in place for now as Cas turns his attention to the palm-sized bruise at Dean's hip, where he held Dean in place as he outright mounted him. He kisses it just as softly, and he can feel Dean hiss and knows it's in pleasure more than pain. Dean enjoys this; is only beginning to admit it to himself that he likes the roughness as much as Castiel's current tenderness.

Free hand palming his crotch, unzipping his fly to help ease the pressure and deny himself friction, Castiel ignores the proud jut of Dean's own erection to dip lower, fingers teasing the crease of his ass, knuckles brushing against his balls, before his hands slide between Dean's bowed thighs, parting them to his view as he ignores the impatient shift of Dean's hips, trying to bring Castiel's attention where he feels it should be. His hair tickles the underside of Dean's cock as he bends in to kiss the fading teeth marks left on the inside of his thigh by their round of sex on the couch before the trial, and he can feel Dean toeing off his boots and see the flex of muscles as he kicks one foot clear of his jeans.

Castiel helps hook Dean's leg back onto his shoulder when he raises it, hand bracing his mate's hip to balance him through the motion, as Cas takes advantage of having the right angle to bite gently down over the mark, sucking softly, drawing color back to the surface. He likes this mark, likes knowing when Dean closes his legs he'll feel it there, reminding him of Castiel buried between his thighs. He's coming to admit that he may be a slightly possessive bastard in his own right, but this mark isn't about anyone else but them, isn't a sign or a signal. It's a perpetual tease, and he wants it to stay that way, his hand sliding up Dean's leg as he sucks on this space well below where Dean wants his mouth.

Like this, Dean is spread open for him, and he takes advantage of it. Fingertips trail over his thigh, traveling higher, hand cupping his balls and rolling them teasingly, before his fingers sneak back to travel the skin of his perineum. Dean's slick enough already that the skin of his entrance feels satiny, overheated, and it takes no pressure at all for Castiel to slip just one fingertip into him, barely breaching the ring of muscle.

Above him, Dean bites back a sharp curse, shifting, trying to fuck himself down onto Castiel's finger but held in place by the leg hoisted onto Cas's shoulder. He feeds Dean another inch, sinking his finger in only to the second knuckle, only enough to tease as he lifts his head and watches the figure above him let out a shuddering breath, opening his eyes just enough to glare down at Cas through the dark fringe of his lashes.

"Don't make me tackle you to the goddamn concrete, Castiel."

There's something about how Dean rolls his name out in a growl that tightens the need deep in Cas's stomach. It's a command, but Castiel can hear the plea behind it, the need for more, and that sends him leaning in without further teasing to give Dean what he's desperate for, finger pressing in deeper, twisting as Castiel wraps his lips around his Omega's cock at last.

Dean was sore, pained as he sat, so Castiel is gentle in fingering him, thumb stroking his apologies over the abused flesh, as caring as he'd been to the bruises, though this time his mouth is otherwise too occupied for kisses. Dean's heel digs in between his shoulder blades, leg tightening, hips pumping forward, fucking into Castiel's mouth on instinct. Years Dean's lived as a Beta, been the one in control, the one doing the fucking, and Castiel can feel that in him now, see it as he looks up the broad planes of his lover, a hand braced to keep Dean from pushing too far, setting the limitations on how much he is allowed to tax Castiel's still novice abilities at this. Tears prick Castiel's eyes when Dean thrusts into his throat the first time, lost to the sensation, and he offers a slurred apology before tempering his motions.

Cas revels in the slackening of Dean's jaw, the punched out sound of pleasure he wins when he slides a second finger into his mate effortlessly, trying to match the rhythm created between Dean's movement and Castiel's, crooking his fingers forward when Cas's tongue moves, deft physician's hands put to use. He's not surprised when Dean's hand tightens in his hair warningly, a string of softened consonants he thinks might be Dean trying to talk to him all he can manage as he spills down Castiel's throat. He draws it out, stroking over the sweet spot within Dean as he comes, teasing him until he's limp and braced up by the car and by Castiel's hands on him as he slides his fingers out again, cleans Dean with soft suction and slow drags of his tongue before releasing him entirely.

"Your turn." Dean mumbles, trying to tug Castiel up by his shirt, and Cas resists, dropping Dean's leg and rolling his shoulders to make them relax, leaning in to rest his forehead against Dean's body as he settles back on his heels and works his jaw to ease it with slow teasing kisses over the skin he can reach.

"I'm fine." He presses a kiss to the curve of Dean's hip bone, sliding his hands up and down Dean's flanks soothingly, waiting for him to stop shaking. He can feel Dean's disbelief, and knows this isn't something he can explain.

He enjoys this, making Dean feel this way, making him fall apart and _need_, just as much as he enjoys the sex itself. He doesn't want to come, not right now; he wants Dean there with him for it, and he can wait for that, content with how he made Dean feel.

"My knees are killing me." He excuses himself instead, winning a sudden laugh from Dean at the uncharacteristic complaint. Hands hook under Cas's arms and haul him to his feet, Dean's show of strength effortless even as exhausted as he is. Cas catches his jeans before they fall, carefully adjusting again before refastening them, leaning in to kiss Dean, savoring the knowledge that Dean can taste himself on Cas now.

"Alright then, old man. Bed." Dean rumbles into his shoulder, letting Cas brace him now that he's upright, arm tight across Dean's back. It's early for them, but for now, Cas knows Dean wants to rest because he's pleasantly exhausted, not because he's anticipating a long day and grueling trial tomorrow.

Pressing a kiss to his lover's hair, Castiel hugs him a bit tighter, nodding his agreement. "Bed."

Later Castiel slides onto the mattress on the floor within the otherwise sparse and empty room, stripped down and showered, teeth brushed, and nestles himself against Dean's back. It's a conscious decision as he carefully positions his hand away from his usual hold, pressed to the heartbeat of Dean's chest instead of protectively draped over his stomach.

Deeply asleep, Dean huffs something incomprehensible and discontented, and sleepily raps his knuckles against Cas's as he reaches for his hand. Their fingers linked together, he drops their hands back to rest over Dean's stomach where they usually fall. Knees bending slightly, he shifts further back into Castiel's space, finally settling back into deep sleep once they're spooned together again, just as they are every night, Cas's knee trapped between Dean's, skin to skin and tangled together the way Cas prefers but Dean complains about when he's awake.

Unconscious as he is, he refuses to let Castiel change them, or second guess himself. Dean is probably the most stubborn man he's met, and he doesn't even have to try.

Castiel presses a thankful kiss into the nape of Dean's neck, closes his eyes, and settles in against Dean. Tomorrow they fight back, and he knows they will take an emotional blow doing it. Tomorrow they'll leave, fold Castiel into Dean's life, and create a new normal for themselves. They can worry about tomorrow when it comes.

The phone's buzzing is lost beneath Dean's gentle snores. Chuck Shurley stumbles through a message and then hangs up, flustered and awkward as his son would have been had he been awake to answer.


	36. Chapter 36

Someone vomited in the courthouse sometime since they were last here, Castiel would swear by it. A verdict came back that someone literally couldn't stomach and the aroma lingers still, buried under sharp citrus solvent that only underscores what it's attempting to mask. Closed fists braced against the counter, head bowed, he can see the polished area of floor beneath his feet, a path mopped cleaner than the rest of the tile, but not clean enough.

He's trying not to read any symbolism in it, putting mind over matter by making himself focus on the issue at hand, marshalling his thoughts. Even so, the underlying stench is damaging his calm, each slow even breath he's taught himself to take making his own stomach churn, ruining the effect.

Dean is in with the man who just the other day was attempting to put Castiel in jail. Gabriel is on a plane, headed across the country to sabotage Lucifer while he has the outcome of Castiel's trial as an excuse to get him in the door if needs be. Charlie is out in the hall, flanked by Jo and Ash as she excitedly explains things on her computer, and Castiel's seat is against the wall next to Ellen, the open space among them waiting for him, a standing invitation into Dean's extended, adoptive family.

Sam followed his brother into the small conference room commandeered by Henriksen, declaring himself an 'advocate for the victim,' a phrase that put steel in Dean's back and an angry cant to his head, sending him marching into the pretrial meeting as if he were going to skin both lawyers alive in there. If Castiel were a betting man, he'd be willing to wager on Dean in any fight.

Overall, the entire morning has felt rushed, frantic, from the moment he woke up to Dean already out of the bed and lobbing a pillow at his head to get him moving. He_should_ appreciate the extra time Dean gave him to sleep, and looking at himself in the mirror of the bathroom he _does_look better rested than he has since they were first arrested. He just can't shake the worry that has been slowly growing since they woke.

Dean stripped the sheets and bedding while Castiel showered and dressed, and they left the shabby apartment over the garage dark when they locked up after themselves. Now, the weight of every one of his possessions sinks the Impala low on her wheels, books and clothing and mementos in the trunk and tucked onto the back floorboards, covered by the pillows and blankets. It's a promise, it's their escape, but it's also nerve wracking in its own way.

Cas is worried, he's anxious, and he's thrown off of his routine with the added knowledge that he has _no idea_ what the routine will be from now on. Castiel's life was orderly in its way, ruled by bus schedules and a set shift, his favorite meals at each place he ordered from, solitude to keep him from having to coordinate with others, and books as company. Now he's built what schedule he has around Dean-sex when they wake, Dean's shower, meals together, time in the garage watching Dean work and creating a structure out of the chaos of John Winchester's books. He had a schedule during his education, one at the hospital, one in the military, and one with the clergy. He only just accepted that Dean's world was less rigid, less structured, and has become comfortable in that.

Now he knows nothing about Dean's work schedule or the life he comes from in Sioux Falls, doesn't know how long it will take him to find a job of his own, and while he could pick South Dakota out on a map because his memory has never failed him, he couldn't tell anything about its local culture, or weather patterns, or job market.

No matter what happens today, they're _free_ at the end of it. But with that freedom comes an uncertainty that he's bracing for. First they need to get through the day. They both know that what they face in the trial today may damage them. Henriksen was a professional; he asked just what he needed to in order to illustrate his case for the jury. Crowley wants nothing less than to shift all of the attention off of the crimes his clients committed, and on to them.

The waking realization that Dean is going to spend the day being blamed for his own rape, and the later attempted rape, has Castiel on the verge of snapping. The knowledge that it happens all the time, that it's a constant worry for Dean and for others, has him needing to do something to distract himself, or center himself. Once he would have prayed. There's a hollow in his chest, a tightness in his throat, and he just… can't. As much as his faith is slowly on the mend, it's still too fragile for him to rely on it or count on God to hear him. There are times he's still angry with God, too, though he doesn't doubt his existence.

There's something, though. What he needs to distract himself is already at hand.

The door practically shrieks as it opens, dragging along the tile floor far more than it did before his brother used it as a weapon. The swing of the door sends Castiel slipping out of his haven, sidestepping a deputy coming into the bathroom with a hand on his receiver letting them know he'd stepped away, his voice echoing in the enclosed space. Cas is careful to avoid the looks of Dean's family in the main hall, turning away as soon as he sees them and turning again a few paces later to put him in one of the tributary halls, a stairwell forgotten in favor of the elevators to one side, and a vending machine to the other.

The vending machine's green glow is mostly lost in the yellow light of the hall, but he settles in beside it on the floor, back to the wall and his shoulder to the cold metal and plastic, letting his fingers unclench from the phone, steady as he swipes across the screen to unlock it. The whirr of the coolant running through the machine behind him is white noise, drowning out the low chatter of the hall, and he breathes out before bringing the phone to his ear, thumbing up the voicemail he's been putting off since he woke to a notice on his phone.

"Castiel, this is. . . uh, this is Chuck. I'm your father… I guess." There's a puff of air that creates static in the voicemail's recording, and Castiel swears he can almost hear Chuck Shurley rolling his eyes at himself, imagines him dragging a hand down a face Castiel can't even begin to picture.

"I didn't mean that to come out so Vader. I'm not good at this. I should. . ." Should hang up or start over, Cas isn't sure, but he's unconsciously holding his breath for a decision made hours before, trying to figure out the man on the other side of the line without any frame of reference. "I saved your number. I won't bother you, but if you want to call me I'll know it's you now. I won't always pick up, but. . ." But he'd know.

The message ends abruptly with a stumbling goodbye, and Castiel waits with the phone by his ear until the screen dims again.

His Omega father is a traumatized shut-in, eking by under a false name. Castiel knew this, already, from his conversation with his brother. It hurts more than he expected to hear the false starts, the clear nervousness. Was his father always socially inept, or is this entirely what was done to him all in the name of bringing Castiel and his twins into the world? Is their social behavior something that Castiel and Emmanuel inherited from this stranger? Is there anything else they can attribute to him? Their slightly sharper noses than their Alpha father had in the vain portrait hanging in their childhood home? The unruliness of their hair, or the brighter blue of their eyes than the rest of their brothers?

How does his father's existence factor into all the ways Castiel's life is changing?

Phone resting against the cleft of his chin, Castiel stares at the fire safety poster on the far wall, mind trying to parse what he heard, looking for new information, knowing he needs to slot this into his worldview as best he can. If his mind was one of Dean's engines, he's fairly certain he'd be hearing idle clicks, his thought processes stalled.

Somehow, he knows Dean's coming before he rounds the corner, and doesn't flinch when Dean's back thumps into the wall beside him as he slides to the floor to sit beside Castiel on the tile, unmindful of the dirt that likely lingers there, the dust and ash of years of haphazard cleaning. It doesn't take more than an arm slung around Castiel to get him resting his head against Dean's shoulder, secure in the knowledge that the vending machine blocks the view from the hall. "Phone call?"

Castiel shrugs slightly in acknowledgement, and Dean doesn't seem to need more to know what happened, and that Castiel doesn't want to discuss it. The arm around him squeezes slightly, another offer of comfort and protection, and Castiel soaks it in unashamedly, breathing in the smell of Dean, his palm finding the warm dip of his mate's back beneath the borrowed suit jacket, spreading his hand to get as much contact as possible.

It doesn't last. Nothing ever is allowed to, with them, it seems.

"Henriksen wants you up there first." There's an obvious note of disdain for this plan in Dean's voice, when he finally speaks again. "He's saving me for last, to get the 'emotional punch,' before he has to give the floor over to Crowley. So I won't be in there when you have to testify."

But Castiel can be there for Dean, when he has to sit in front of the courtroom and rip open half-healed wounds. Cas bites back the urge to comment on that, to say he prefers it this way, because Dean's clearly upset about it. "I can manage that. I don't have to be as 'sympathetic' to the jury this time, I gather?"

"He probably wants you to be." Dean smirks faintly, a wry quirk of his lips that Castiel catches from the corner of his eye, a defiance creeping into Dean's low voice. "Ask yourself if you're feeling like playing this game by anyone else's rules, though, Cas. 'Cause me? I'm not feeling very cooperative. We got you off the hook already. That was what I was here for."

"That was never _my_ goal." Castiel's voice is flat but instinctively contrary, and he's disappointed but not surprised when after a moment and a deep breath, as if he's bracing himself for something, Dean bumps him off of his shoulder, squaring them down. This is part of them, he knows; they clash, they collide, stubborn and immovable, both of them, and for whatever reason Dean is digging his feet in.

"Why, you been making plans without me again, Cas?" There's no hurt this time in Dean's voice or face, nothing to betray that this is a painful topic—it's challenge, a jab pure and simple, and no matter how unconventional their relationship it gets the expected rise out of the Alpha in front of him.

"I want them in jail, Dean, for what they did to you. Your brother knew that, it's why I hired him to counter-sue, and to represent me. I want them prosecuted, imprisoned, destitute. . ."

"Sounding pretty Old Testament, there, _padre_." Dean interrupts, fast as a whipcrack, clearly goading him, strong jaw set and green eyes bright and reflective in the fluorescent light of the hall. Everything about him; posture, stare, scent, the sharp words and tones, provoke Castiel, peeling away his shell, stripping him down to the fury he's been refusing himself since his loss of temper at the hotel made him believe he'd lost Dean. "Guess you're a little pissed off, huh?"

"_Obviously_." Castiel glares at him in return for the reminder, stung and irritated, biting his retort off sharply. This isn't something Castiel will apologize for, not something he'll back down from. He isn't _wrong_ about this, and he doesn't know why this is happening, he just knows that a dam broke, and he's furious again.

"Yeah. . . ? And what're you gonna do about it, then?"

They hear the footsteps, breaking their locked stare as a pair of out-of-place black tennis shoes with pink laces come into sight right before them. "Trouble in paradise?" At finding twin glares aimed at her, Charlie whistles between her teeth quietly, eyes widening. "Woah. Geeze, just a phrase, and I'm just the errand girl. They're all seated in the courtroom. They're doing their opening statements. Cas, you're up first, you gotta_go_..."

Castiel unfolds from his seated position, stubbornly refusing to look at Dean as he does. He's fluid, graceful, a fighter entering a match, but the single-minded focus that had so surprised Dean in the parking lot outside the hospital they day they met isn't new to him anymore. That's just Cas. As Castiel strides towards the courtroom, Dean pushes himself up slowly and brushes off his slacks, Charlie moving to lean against the wall at his side.

"How long do you figure before he realizes you ticked him off on purpose?" Charlie asks, watching Castiel glare a challenge at the bailiff until the door is opened before him. Beside her, Dean shrugs his shoulders and forces himself to unwind, unperturbed at Charlie sussing out his intentions. His own anger is back to a low simmer now, rather than the overt aggression of his act.

Dean was never angry at _Cas_ in that, he was channeling what he needed to in order to get the job done. He wishes that didn't make him feel like such a prick, though.

"Not just a fight, I picked a _stupid_fight with him. He'll figure it out." Cas is a great many things, but slow on the uptake he isn't. Dean expects he'll understand what Dean was up to before he gets on the stand—but he's already created momentum, pushed him in the direction he needs to go. Castiel can be unstoppable once he gets his feet under him, and Dean had minutes at best to get him there. And if there's one thing he's good at, it's pissing people off—with Cas, or with Sam, or with Bobby, or once upon a time with John, it's cake. He knows them well enough, knows what buttons to push.

Digging in his pocket he pulls out a crumpled dollar bill, flattening it between his palms as the door closes behind Castiel, before feeding it to the machine beside them and punching the button for a Coke. He wants a _drink_, a real one, after winding Cas up like that—something to make him not see it as manipulation, and to make the tightness of his throat burn for it . . . he'll have to settle for caffeine and sugar.

"You sure this is smart?" As he turns again, Charlie looks up at Dean from beneath the scarlet fringe of her bangs, tilting her head at the closing door of the courtroom. "If he gets thrown in jail for contempt of court or assault or something, it kinda undoes everything . . ."

Dean barks a humorless laugh, dropping an arm around Charlie's shoulder and drawing her out of the hallway, back towards the small room off of the main hall where they're to wait for his own time to testify, at his brother and Henriksen's insistence after the violation of his restraining order came up. "You guys want him to come across as 'human' instead of 'scary robot,' right? 'Pissed off boyfriend' is pretty damn human in this situation. Maybe scary human, but trust me, he won't screw up or get thrown out. It isn't how he works. _I'm_more likely to get pissed and throw punches than he is. And anyway, I called his _control_ into question and he has a point to prove. He's got this."

"You seem pretty sure of that." Charlie answers slowly, far more nervous about this than Dean, and it wins her a shrug in return as Dean drops into a chair, eyes on the clock, pulling his own phone out of his suit pocket and setting it on the table, ready for any texts Ellen, Jo or Ash send from the courtroom. "Dude, _I_ think he's the quiet kid in the class everyone knows not to screw with or he'll snap, and I'm Alpha _and_ a redhead. He has literally _killed people_before, and they didn't assault his. . . _you_." Dean can hear the word she's replacing, clearer than if she'd just said it, and he smirks ruefully, self-mocking, as another person joins the tiptoe-around-the-subject dance in his presence. "You positive you read him well enough to know what you're doing?"

Of course he does. If Cas went in collected, it'd take a crowbar to pry his jaw open and get him talking, or coaxing with a connection that Henriksen just doesn't have with Cas. Righteously furious, though, Castiel will throw the truth like a grenade at them, whether they want to hear it or not—there's a reason they were fighting when Cas first confessed he was in love with Dean.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Trust me, I know him." Eyes on the minute hand, watching the slow crawl of time, Dean raises the soda to his lips and pushes a chair out for Charlie with his foot, not glancing her direction as he drawls his answer. "He's my mate, right?"

xXx

If looks could kill, Nate Hardey and Roy Etheridge would be cinders on the floor of the courtroom. Even on the opposite side of the room from them, seated just behind Henriksen's chair, Sam feels vaguely uncomfortable on their behalf. Beside them at the defense table, Crowley has been watching Castiel through narrowed eyes his entire testimony, as if he's a whole new animal than the attorney was expecting.

Sam feels a savage sort of satisfaction at that, himself; he wants Crowley to sweat, and there's something about Castiel's conviction that is unsettling. He knows what Crowley was expecting. He's seen it himself. Now, though, if he hadn't seen Cas fidgety over a stolen breakfast, blush over being teased for his sex life, and reluctantly chuff laughter at being teased by his older brother, Sam might think he was the avenging angel he was named for.

"So your interest in interfering in the altercation at the hospital was purely to help Mr. Winchester . . ."

"I was keeping them, and their three associates, from gang-raping, abducting, and potentially murdering Dean." Each question has been sharply answered, terse and brutally honest, a ringing counter-accusation. "I assumed anyone with a modicum of human decency would try to help, too."

Everyone in the room is tense, trapped in there with Cas, even their family who has heard Castiel's entire side of the story before. Well, most everyone. Sam is watching the entire proceeding with a professional eye, ready to lean across the wall separating him from Henriksen and drop notes as needed. Jo, meanwhile, is leaned back in her seat on the bench beside Sam, arms folded over her chest, gaze fixed on Castiel and a triumphant look in her eyes, corner of her mouth tugged up slightly.

Sam sits back, shoulder to shoulder with her, and speaks to his surrogate sister out of the side of his mouth in a whisper as he watches Henriksen and Crowley argue for and against letting that statement stay on the record. "What're you smirking at, Joanna Beth?"

Jo brings her hand up to rub her nose, hiding the curve of her lips from anyone watching. "I was just thinking . . . turns out, Dean's boyfriend _is_kinda hot." Ellen drives an elbow into her daughter's ribs to shush her, shooting her a scolding look that Jo learned to ignore long ago, finishing her answer to Sam as the prosecution's examination continues. "Plus I'm pretty sure jackass over there is pissing himself thinking about having to question him."

Ellen's quelling glare at them both succeeds in making Sam sit forward again, casting a quick eye at the jury to try and tell the thoughts of the other jurors about Castiel's protective streak. Jo fishes her phone out of her pocket and rests it on her knee, surreptitiously tapping out a text message while all the attention in the room is on Castiel.

xXx

_Your boyfriend's sexy when pissed. TBH, you may have to fight some of the ladies in the room off of him to get him back._

Dean rolls his eyes, but something in him relaxes at the teasing jibe that made his phone buzz on the table, finally giving him some sort of insight into the courtroom. He tilts the phone away from his companion as he types out an answer.

_He can defend himself. Stop eyeing Cas or I'll tell your girlfriend._

Charlie is watching him with barely disguised curiosity, her hands poised over the keyboard of her laptop where she's been programming a database track Omega disappearances, and Dean shakes his head slightly, indicating a lack of information. He doesn't get much time to respond before Jo's next message buzzes his phone again.

_Never pegged you for the jealous type. And she's not my girlfriend, jerk._

There is at least one person in that room thinking of him as he _is_, not the way this entire fiasco is going to attempt to paint him; either a broken abused Omega, defined by his gender classification, or a conniving whore who used the former priest on the stand to his own ends. Jo's known him as long as she can remember, and she sounds _normal_ here, not the teary-eyed girl who he comforted in the courtroom during Cas's trial. It's steadying, keeps him grounded in the present.

_Keep telling yourself that, brat. What's happening? Dying in here._

"What's going on?" Charlie is worrying her lower lip between her teeth, and Dean shrugs in response.

"My 'informant' sucks at staying on topic." Dean mutters, but he watches the screen in his hand, as dots appear on to indicate that she's typing, and then frustratingly disappear. He growls in frustration, pushing a hand through his hair. "Dammit."

"You suck at waiting." Charlie sighs, giving up on getting work done and closing her laptop, elbows braced on the table. "They're not supposed to have phones out. Give them a bit, they've gotta be sneaky."

As if answering her, the phone buzzes again, screen lighting up, a single word of warning and explanation.

_Crowley._

xXx

"So tell me, Castiel. . ." The way Crowley says Cas's name makes his skin crawl, he rolls it off his tongue with too much familiarity, somehow dragging over each syllable in his rough accent in order to illustrate the strangeness of his given name. Cas is fairly certain he's managed to hide the angry twitch of his clenched jaw, but he doesn't attempt to lower his shoulders or his chin, or soften the scowl he has fixed on the attorney who paces to a stop in front of him with a salesman's genial smile, belied by his shrewd stare. " . . . How does a virgin Alpha, a doctor and priest from an obscenely wealthy family . . . end up mated to a drug-addicted Omega prostitute within hours of meeting him?"

Castiel can barely hear the bang over the gavel over the rushing in his ears, the drumbeat of his pulse thudding through his skull. Crowley smirks in the face of his fury, one eyebrow cocked slightly as if to silently remark that he _had_ warned Castiel of exactly how he intended to win this trial.

_Assuming facts not in evidence_. It's such a mild term for the blatant lies being woven together by Crowley, and the little attorney flicks his glance at the judge, ignoring Henriksen behind him. "Oh, it will be very much in evidence. I'll rephrase, though." Crowley spins on his heel, pacing farther towards the jury, his grandiloquent gesture towards Castiel all part of the showmanship.

"Let's break this down, then, shall we? Prior to meeting the Omega, what exactly was your sexual experience, _Father Castiel_?" He turns to watch Castiel from beside the Jury, keeping Castiel fully aware of the audience that will judge his mate, and placing himself between them and Castiel's scowl, letting them view him as Crowley does.

"Prior to meeting _Dean_, none." The emphasis isn't subtle, not that Cas is subtle at the best of times. The idea of Crowley spending this entire court case referring to Dean as 'the Omega' is an irritant, a fly to be brushed aside. "I don't see how that's relevant."

"It's_not_ relevant." Henriksen is still standing, hands planted on the prosecutor's table, a looming presence. "Your Honor. . ."

"'Your Honor,' I believe it's up to the jury to determine the relevance, considering the evidence that the '40 Year Old Virgin' here allowed himself to be led around by the knot." Castiel resists the urge to slap away the hand pointed in his direction as Crowley paces closer to the judge, but he can't keep the scorn out of his interruption.

"I am not forty."

Cas has no idea why Crowley looks smug at his correction, why he can hear a juror titter in involuntary laughter, and Henriksen shoots a sharp look at him. It's Sam's reaction that finally explains it to him, fingers to his forehead rubbing a crease between his eyes and hand partially obscuring his face, and Castiel _knows_ that look. He's seen it on Dean, the kind of bemused exasperation of him not getting something they think he should have, some reference or quote.

He's being treated like a societal freak because he was focused and dedicated enough to his studies that he doesn't know every single reference from television and cinema. A freak because he believed, because his belief led him to the clergy and then to trying to mend broken bodies when his faith finally failed him.

Crowley is already turning him into the butt of a joke, a laughing stock and a naïve fool, while portraying Dean as manipulative enough to take advantage of him. It was easier when he was just furious, when he knew precisely what he was going to say. Henriksen was straightforward, his testimony was curt and factual, but now the cross-examination is a minefield of double-speak. He's never been a political creature: he'd rather everyone speak plainly. It's the wrong sort of frustrating to keep his steam going, and leaves him flustered and defensive as Crowley picks up his line of questioning again moments later.

"How long after meeting did your relationship take an amorous turn?" The phrasing is vague, and Castiel's eyes crease as he frowns, squinting silently at the attorney's back as he places himself once more beside jury.

'Amorous' could be anything. It could be buying Dean the drink at the bar, or being unable to let go of his hand at the hospital. It could be leaving his shift in Dean's wake, hoping to find the words to ask Dean to get a drink with him. It could be Dean's lips grazing over the pulse in his wrist in the car after the fight. It could be the inexplicable warmth of sitting on the couch patching him up, or the first time he had to resist kissing Dean. Amorous is just . . . _wanting_. He's gone his entire life not feeling that attraction as anything but a sort of vague aesthetic appreciation, until he met Dean. And he can't help that, wouldn't _try_ to help that if he could.

Everything Crowley says feels like a trap. Castiel's answers slow and become less certain.

"We kissed the morning after the fight, but Dean was uncomfortable with it going farther than that kiss, and I did not want to press the issue." Castiel finally settles on, hedging his bets on Crowley's meaning.

"The arrest record shows that days after the fight, both you and _Dean_ were arrested outside of your apartment?" Crowley doesn't just say Dean's name, he parrots it back, putting the same inflection into the name as Castiel gave it. It's too subtle to be antagonizing, but Cas notices it nonetheless—he's meant to.

His frown deepens, and he fights the urge to play into it by looking away from Crowley, tearing his stare away from the attorney's profile. "That's correct."

"And that you left the hospital after the fight and went directly to your apartment, concealing _Dean's_ car from the authorities while my clients were being admitted to the hospital."

Cas doesn't need Sam's sharp look here to see the potential pitfall—answering incorrectly here incriminates him all over again, puts out there that he deliberately hid from the authorities. He put his hand on the Bible and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Then again, he's sworn so many things as a priest, a soldier, a doctor, that he's never quite managed to keep to. What's one more well-intentioned half-truth?

"Your 'clients'" his fingers crook faintly, air-quotes kept to his lap but the sarcasm is apparent "…keyed profanity, slurs and vulgarity onto the car. . ."

"Unless you watched my clients do so, which I sincerely doubt, this is hearsay." Crowley's interruption is lazy, showing the jury exactly how little he's worried about this. Judge Turner's instruction to strike Cas's comment from the record is infuriating, but Castiel begins again, in a monotone deadpan, his face carefully unreadable.

"Dean's car was inexplicably keyed with the exact same profanity and gendered slurs your 'clients' used against him in my presence. At the bar where 'your clients' sexually harassed him until they were encouraged to leave the premises." Ellen's attaboy nod at him is far more comforting than it should be, and he inclines his head slightly in her direction, acknowledging his mate's surrogate mother, before making himself finish the statement, turning his attention back to Crowley. "When I took Dean to my apartment, I covered the car. My parking space was within easy sight of a city bus stop and the swimming pool frequented by the children."

"And the car, and its owner, stayed there until after you were arrested together, half dressed and smelling of sex." Crowley, for all his pretentious cane when they met, seems sprightly as he turns on his heel to face Castiel again and paces across the courtroom floor to him. Castiel tracks his movements, eyes narrowed, mind racing to try and anticipate the direction of the questions. Crowley _wasn't_ focused on the car; stepping to avoid one trap has led him inadvertently into another. "According to the arrest records and the report of the booking officer, by then _Dean_ had taken up residence with you."

There's not a question there, but Crowley waits as if he should answer, attempting to draw Castiel into saying something.

"Do you regularly invite people to move in with you after knowing them for a day?" The burr of Crowley's accent makes the words a mocking purr as he finally prompts him.

"No . . ." He's neatly cut off, Crowley speaking over him before he has chance to voice his explanation.

"Your testimony has you meeting Friday at the hospital. Assaulting my clients on his word. 'Kissing' Saturday morning. Arrested in a compromising position in public Sunday evening. Is it fair to say that you've been living together in a sexual relationship since you assaulted my clients on his behalf?" Castiel isn't prepared for this—a fight he can handle, but the double speak, the sharp turns in questions, he can't navigate by simply barreling through them. He's acutely aware of the fact that he can't risk answering something wrong, but he also can't _lie_.

Crowley has a story, the story of an Omega sliding into the life of the wayward son of an affluent family, an Alpha with no practical experience with Omegas, and turning his world around. And in a way, Dean _did_, though not how Crowley is insinuating. There is just enough of a grain of truth to it, though, that he can twist Castiel's answers to fit his version of events because of how quickly their relationship developed. Even informed of what Crowley was aiming for, Castiel can't sidestep it in the confines of the courtroom: this is Crowley's element, not his.

Henriksen does his part: his objections of leading the witness are sustained when he can make them, but it's the questions that Castiel _can't_ avoid that are damning, moreso than the editorializing embedded within them. The angry, embarrassed flush when Crowley begins questioning their private lives isn't helping matters, playing into him being the socially awkward virgin he had been, and it infuriates him that he can't help it. All of the headway he made adeptly handling questioning from Henriksen is going to amount to nothing.

If Dean's assailants walk, it's going to be on _him_.


	37. Chapter 37

It's another hour before Castiel walks out of the courtroom and into the hall, and he doesn't make it two steps past that before Dean has him by the elbow seemingly from out of nowhere, directing him into a blessedly quiet room. Charlie's computer is humming on the table, but the redhead herself is conspicuously absent as Dean lets himself be enfolded into a hug.

Castiel tucks his face into the bend of Dean's neck, closes his eyes, and tries to ignore the nagging sense of everything going _wrong_ as Dean tightens his arms around Castiel's back, the hand between his shoulder blades unconsciously attempting to soothe away the knotted muscles there. "Sorry I picked a fight. Didn't know what else to do."

It's such a distant concern that Castiel can't help a humorless puff of laughter, warm against Dean's throat. Dean sounds gruff, even in apology, and Castiel releases him slowly, making himself step back. "You have nothing to apologize for. I think I undermined your entire court case, so . . ."

"You finish that sentence and I'm going to kick you in the ankle." Jo Harvelle, for all her stature, picked up her mother's intimidating presence. She looks decidedly more ruffled than she did before Castiel took the stand, her carefully pulled back hair escaping in blonde curls that frame her face from her tense fidgeting in the courtroom. She braces a heeled shoe against the door to hold it open for Charlie, who slips in past her carrying drinks from the vending machine for all of them.

"I. . ." Castiel has no idea what to say to that, glancing at Dean to try and get him to explain why he's being threatened.

"She will." Dean supplies unhelpfully, and he steps forward to relieve Charlie of half of the drinks, slapping a bottle of water into Cas's hand. "And it hurts like a sunuvabitch."

"Darn right it does." Jo settles herself onto the table beside Dean, legs crossed at the ankle, and she accepts the drink Charlie hands her with a smile at Sam's assistant that seems the flirtatious feminine counterpart of Dean's charm. "The guy's a snake, Cas. I told you, he did the same thing to my mom and me. Unless you're saying you're smarter than us. . ."

The threat is implicit.

Fingertips pressing to his eyes, trying to force the pain behind them away, Castiel's palms are still clammy as he drags his hands down his face. She means well, they _all_ mean well, but it's just more words to push him and prod him in a direction—guilt or innocence, his own culpability in everything. . . What's the difference between being conversationally led by Crowley, or by the Harvelles? Just because it's something he'd like to hear? He's not ready to forgive himself. He can't handle being useless, and he's useless at _words_. He needs to be _doing_ something.

"How long until Dean's testimony?"

"Henriksen flipped the other three guys against Hardey and Etheridge. Guess they couldn't afford the lawyer or the county had them on something else. They plea bargained, and part of that is testifying against the other two. He's going to get them up on the stand, and Crowley's going to have to take a crack at them too. So. Couple hours, maybe?" Charlie shugs, spreading her hands slightly. She's good at her job, but she's not psychic.

Three out of five. They've already compromised, the justice system deciding _for_Dean what justice is, meting out lesser punishments to some: the two who Dean dealt with and one who ran. Lesser punishments because they were handled by the Omega in the situation? Because one fled rather than fight an Alpha?

_Feisty little bitch_.

Castiel's headache spikes as he remembers the words, and he can still picture Dean's expression as he was pressed up against the car, how his face twisted into the snarl of a man with nothing to lose, who wanted to die. The assailant who encouraged Dean to 'squirm' because it excited him was given a _deal_. Opening his eyes, he watches the faintly sickened look on his mate's face, and Castiel would wager he's thinking the same, or that it's dragged him off somewhere else in his mind. With a breath, though, Dean's determination is back, and the stubborn jut of his jaw draws Cas's hand in unintentionally. Cupping Dean's cheek, he steps forward and kisses his mate tenderly, sex the farthest thing from his mind, just a brief press of lips because he needs to ground himself and because he thinks Dean may need it as well.

"Don't mind me. Not weird at all, being trapped on the table by Dean making out with someone." Jo drawls from where she's still perched right beside Dean, and Cas registers the soft thump of Jo being whacked on the arm by an empty plastic bottle, Charlie coming to their defense. Dean breaks the kiss anyway, and rests his forehead against Cas's.

"Crusading?"

Castiel shrugs slightly, accepting the terminology as Dean's fingers release their grip on his hair, palm sliding down the back of his neck and coming to a rest on his shoulder, warm and steadying. He's not sure how Dean is doing this, keeping a level head for both of them, offering Castiel comfort even knowing what he's going to be facing. He's a little in awe of Dean's strength of will, and that twists something in his gut because he knows what Crowley would have to say about that, what the jury and the courtroom thinks of that regard now.

The rest of this trial, win or lose, has fallen squarely on Dean's testimony. Castiel is not going to miss that. "I'll be back."

"Yeah, okay Schwarzenegger." Another reference he doesn't get. Cas tries not to bristle at it, so soon after being mocked for his lack of pop culture awareness, but Dean is perceptive and the hand on his shoulder squeezes at the tense muscles before releasing him.

Castiel doesn't linger—his abrupt departure is probably rude to the two women in the room, but his head is splitting and his patience for anything doing with the court case is at its end. He knows Dean will understand and is probably stuck making apologies for him.

The sun is blisteringly hot overhead, and there's no wind to speak of today to relieve the summer heat. Castiel ignores it on his walk; somehow it seems like weakness to give in to that, the suit and tie his armor against the church looming before him and everything it symbolizes.

Not to the world, but to _him_ personally.

It's beautiful, imposing, but somehow inviting; the doors swing open at a touch, and the air of the vestibule is a cooling balm, a haven against a harsh world. The church is a façade of brick and stone, a fortress of spiritual protection barely containing a kaleidoscope of colors, the sunlight painting the stained glass images like watercolor against the pews and floors. The anger he's been clinging to, trying to prepare himself by building, wavers as he dips his fingers into the baptismal font at the door, making the sign of the cross on reflex.

He imagines explaining this to Dean, the spiritualistic symbolism of rebaptism every time you enter the church, recommitting and purifying yourself. He can picture Dean's tolerant skepticism, just shy of incredulity. Dean isn't a man of faith, religious or otherwise: his trust is something_earned_, not offered. Castiel gives his faith more freely, and has had it stomped on more often than he cares to admit—and now the world thinks he's a fool for it.

It's instinct to genuflect to the tabernacle and the steady light of the sanctuary lamp that symbolizes God's presence as he approaches the front of the church. It would be disrespectful _not_ to, everything he's been taught reinforces that. Castiel isn't certain what he believes, any more. He_knows_that he still believes in God. They just haven't always been on speaking terms, over the past several years. The Church, though. . .

It's difficult separating the two concepts in his mind.

The last time he was on his knees, he was worshipping a very different idol; Dean's hands in his hair and his body a canvas painted in signs of Castiel's affections. Now he lights a candle and tries to put the image aside as he drops his eyes from the crucifix and down to watch the drag of the match catching. This feels like the last time he will light a candle in prayer, the symbolic offering to God as he sends his silent fears and his hopes and his pleas to the heavens.

The votive candles smell like rose petals, clean and pure, but vaguely indulgent even outside of his rather Spartan ideals. This was something he never had when he was a priest; he'd never had a parish, a church to call his own—he _was_ the church, the symbol of faith for the soldiers under his care, and whether they were in tents, prison cells, hospital rooms, beneath the open desert sky, or in the featureless Chapel of military bases, it was all window dressing.

St. John the Evangelist has been his church since coming to Lawrence, though, and he knows it nearly as well as he did the apartment he was evicted from. He never took the Eucharist here, never accepted communion. He stayed in his pew as the faithful shuffled past to accept their bread and wine, the lone adult still seated in rows of empty pews. The priest watched him with sad eyes as he left Mass every Sunday without completing the sacrament, but never gave him a condemning word or asked him to leave, even offering an ear when Castiel lost a patient or while he was struggling to find his way.

He can feel those eyes on him now, hear the creak of the door into the rectory closing, and he finishes his prayer quietly before rising to his feet.

Settled onto the first pew, elbows across his knees, Father Joshua is nothing like the hard-nosed priests of Castiel's seminary days. His collared shirt sits on him comfortably, unstarched but clean, emphasizing a physique long gone to seed. He's approachable, grandfatherly, unassuming, and wise—he is precisely what Castiel never could have become in the clergy, possessing of a quiet, steady faith that Cas has envied.

"Saw you on the news." Joshua's voice is like antique parchment, coarse and faintly rasping with age. "Wondered if you'd be coming around."

"I'm not here for confession." Castiel warns, and Joshua doesn't blink or respond, as if somehow he knew that. There are younger clergymen, here, tending to the school across the street, handling most of the Masses, leaving the senior priest to his early Sunday morning sermons, his quiet confessionals, and to the gardens at the back of the church. Castiel would have been fine railing at any of the other priests here for the role of the Church in the world, but there's something about Joshua's steady gaze that drops Castiel instead to sit on the steps up to the alter, putting himself on eye level. It's _maddening_, being so angry at the institution itself without being able to direct that frustration onto any one person within it. "I need to send a message. I'm asking to be relieved of my final vows."

"Chastity?" Joshua's look is knowing, but not judgmental. "I assumed. That's not a bell you can unring, Castiel." He is tired of this, tired of everyone looking at him and _knowing_ intimate details about his life, or assuming them, just because of his relationship. Jaw bunching, he stares flatly at Joshua until the older priest sighs, solemn and sympathetic. "I suppose it's to be expected. Three months ago, though, you were up drinking in my rafters saying you didn't fit out there, and considering returning to the fold. I had hoped. . ."

"I'm leaving the church." He doesn't need to be reminded of how poorly he fits in; he knows. Everyone reminds him—Zachariah rubbed his face it in daily at work, Crowley has underlined it, and even Dean doesn't quite understand him. Dean _accepts_ him, though. He's had acceptance before, but never recognized what it _meant_ until he was alone—Gabriel, Emmanuel, Inias, Balthazar and Jimmy embraced him in childhood, even if they were all so different. Anna and Alfie had welcomed him into their unit, made him family to the soldiers there not just their spiritual counsel. And now Dean has given it to him again, folded him into his own broken little family and made him feel welcome in their lives. He'd been looking for acceptance from the church, as well—though they understood him no better than anyone else—because God was supposed to understand, accept, and forgive.

He had that before, but he slammed the door on it in his grief. Acceptance found _him_, though, when he needed it most and thought he deserved it least. And now he sees that he's become one half of something that the church can never _accept_.

"Can't argue with a man in love." Joshua shakes his head, quietly fond, and presses his hands against his knees, leaning forward. "Said I saw you on the news, and I saw your friend with you. I'm old, Castiel, not blind. And not all of us take as direct a route into the church as you did." As Joshua begins rising to his feet from the pew, Castiel beats him to standing, offering a hand to help. "I just hope you know what you're doing."

"I don't." Castiel admits, and he can hear the door opening in the vestibule but ignores it in favor of silently giving his plea for help to the priest before him. "We're making it up as we go. But the Church. . ."

"'The Church,' unlike me, _is_ a little myopic sometimes." Joshua finishes for him, clapping a gnarled hand to Castiel's arm. "I'll pass along your message, Castiel. You just tell me where to send them when they come trying to talk you out of it."

His phone number, the parish in Sioux Falls nearest to Dean's home, and the basics of his request are penned in his block letters as neat as he can make his scrawl, then handed off to the elderly priest with his thanks. Father Joshua calls out to him as he starts past the altar towards the main aisle, his voice carrying in the empty church.

"I'm rooting for you out there, son. But he'd best be good to you." The message isn't for him, and meeting Joshua's gaze across the distance between them, he knows that.

Castiel genuflects at the end of the pew, down to one knee and murmuring the proper Latin as he gives the sign of the cross one last time to the symbol of his faith, vaguely self-conscious of the eyes on him. Dean is leaning against the entry as he turns back, arms folded across his chest with his suit jacket tucked over his elbow, foot braced against the archway as he watches with grave curiosity as Castiel says farewell to the religion that helped to shape and define him.

Dean touches two fingertips to his forehead a vague salute to Father Joshua's 'orders,' and then falls in beside Castiel as they take the steps down and veer towards the park between courthouse and church, again.

Castiel doesn't let himself look back, and after a few minutes he shoves his hands into his pockets, lets out a controlled breath, and begins briefing Dean on what to expect from Crowley in the courtroom.

xXx

The only way this situation could be more awkward for Dean is if Bobby, Benny and Garth managed to show up from Sioux Falls carting John Winchester's ghost in to make sure the whole gang made it, just for maximum discomfort. Maybe they could televise it into all the bars he's frequented over the years, just to make sure everyone gets the full effect of his fucked up life. Barring that unlikely scenario, though, everyone whose opinion he cares about is taking a front seat to the freak show, and there's no real point to asking them to leave.

This is a test run for what his life is going to become. He'd better get used to court cases and his dirty laundry being aired in public, even if it's unsettling as hell that even frikkin' _Ash_, the guy who's been crashing on the pool table at Ellen's for the past decade, is listening intently, or that his grade school teacher is still scowling at him, and that it looks like his little brother is about to start taking notes or something.

He sent Castiel into his testimony angry, hoping to make him ignore all of this crap and react instinctively, but Dean needs to try a different approach. He's got one shot to make an impression that's got to last while Crowley trots in every person he can to tear Dean down. It could be days of trial once Crowley takes the floor, and reading over the subpoenaed defense witnesses didn't tell him everything to expect. He shook his head grimly at a few completely unrecognized names as she read them out, reading the computer screen over Charlie's shoulder.

He's trying not to think about what these faceless strangers know about him—he's got a few ideas, given his history. None of them are good.

Henriksen, for all it's his first time questioning Dean on the stand, is respectful and professional, though it still leaves Dean bruised and trying to hide it, trying to ignore his family as he recounts being raped and beaten as a teenager. Someone could probably argue that Henriksen's examination of Dean as a witness goes better than Sam's did, though Dean wouldn't ever tell Sam that. Henriksen's not as emotionally compromised by this case as Sam was having to question his big brother on the stand, and it's not a fair comparison. Sam's an awesome attorney; he was just a little too close to the issue, and it was his first time hearing most of this. He doesn't dig, though: Henriksen's reluctance to put a 'victim' through hell on the stand seem to be pretty consistent. Henriksen isn't the problem here.

The problem is the smarmy jackass who leans against the witness stand after the prosecutor sits down; there's something about Crowley's expression that makes Dean want to punch the guy's teeth in. He's _smug_: he knows he played Cas, and he's certain he can do it again to Dean.

Castiel's a really straightforward guy (if only mostly honest), but Dean's been a conman most of his life. He's _had_to be. He's convincingly lived a lie since he got out of Lawrence, and covered for his Dad for years long before then. More importantly, though, he's talked himself out of more trouble than he's even had to fight his way out of, and this round isn't nearly as high of stakes for him as Castiel's trial had been. For now, he's fine. His anger is like a few shots of whiskey, a slow burn warming him from the inside out, just enough to be slightly reckless, with the rest a reservoir of bitter frustration he can reach for if he has to.

"Dean, how would you describe your relationship with Father Novak?"

Dean arches an eyebrow slightly, leaning back in the witness chair and folding his arms, his voice sarcastic. "Well, _Fergus_, so far so good. He can't cook for crap, but I think I'll keep him anyway." Dean lowers his voice slightly, a challenge in his eyes. "Wouldn't call him 'Father,' though. He hasn't been a priest in like eight years, and he's not into roleplay. I don't think he wants you calling him Daddy, either."

Someone in the room brays laughter, and others on Crowley's side of the courtroom rumble discontentedly. Judge Turner's call for order settles the room again, but doesn't drag Crowley's stare away from Dean, eyes narrowed as he considers his next approach. It's worth Cas's amusing attempt to neither sulk nor look embarrassed, just to have scored a point and made them both a bit more human, all while underlining how ridiculously transparent how Crowley chose to refer to them was. He just watched Cas turn his back on the church, and the irritated squint at Crowley from across the room was sign enough that it bothered Cas, so why not fuck with Crowley right back?

Outside of the courtroom, Dean gets the feeling this guy would probably have a snarky rejoinder . . . possibly even beat Dean for the sarcasm. Dean wants to remind him that Cas isn't the only one in the room who'd have to mind what they say. Dean's smile is tight, pointed, and weaponized.

He doesn't care if these people think he's a sarcastic shit. It's probably the most accurate impression they'll be given of him this entire trial.

"Mr. Winchester. . ." Crowley distances himself verbally and physically, and the walk across the room puts Dean's assailants in his line of sight, making him tense in his chair again reflexively. "…do you know what 'Slick' is?"

"Cheaper than lube, and better. But you'd have to actually get an Omega into it to know that, so I figure that's what's throwing you off." What the hell kind of question is that? Planning to ask if he knows how a dick works, next?

"Clever." There's something predatory about Crowley, and not in a way Dean's used to. He doesn't seem even remotely sexually interested in Dean, but he's a professional predator, and sees Dean as prey while he's on the stand. Plucking up a piece of paper from the table beside Hardey and Etheridge, he reads off of it. "Lutropin and human chorionic gonadotropics, LH-hCG, combined with dydrogesterone and. . ." Crowley drops the paper from before him, disarming in his smarmy way. "…Well, then it just becomes a mess of chemical formula. Maybe we could ask your mate to help, it _is_ his area of expertise, isn't it?"

The offhand remark has Dean's gaze darting to Castiel, whose furrowed brow and concentrated stare at Crowley and the paper he's holding is pretty clear indication that he'd like to see for himself, but it's not what Crowley is actually aiming at.

"So, I'll ask again. Do you know what Slick is, Mr. Winchester?"

Yeah, he's figured it out now, he just never knew there was a catchy street name for it. Dean takes a deep breath, closing his eyes, and when he opens them again he speaks through a clenched jaw without looking at anyone in particular. "The heat drugs."

"The kind favored by Omega prostitutes, for the effect it has on Alpha potential clients." Crowley agrees, flattening his hand on the paper at the table indicatively. "The exact same drugs found in your blood tests the _last_time you wrongfully accused an Alpha of rape."

The reactions overlap each other, Henriksen's powerful voice not managing to override Dean's snarl. "Objection!"

"You mean the last time some asshole _lawyer_. . ."

The gavel is like a thunder clap in the room, Rufus Turner's impatience with their courtroom drama silencing all parties with a curt demand that the two attorneys approach the bench. There's a moment where Crowley's locked eyes with Dean, and there's something almost like a smirk threatening to tug up the corner of his mouth, before he joins Henriksen at the sidebar.

_Shit_. Shit, he was being baited and he fell for it. Scrubbing a hand over his hair, Dean shakes himself off mentally, and makes himself look to his family as the judge and two lawyers begin a heated debate in lowered voices, keeping the jury out of their issues. He's tried not to look at his family too much; he fixed on Henriksen through his testimony, feeling like a selfish jackass for it the entire time. He couldn't handle looking at them while talking about being pinned down and raped as a kid, can't handle seeing Ellen remember the damage, Sam trying to piece together childhood memories in his head to match, or the others forced to imagine it.

He's up there ripping apart his own carefully projected image, and he's too chickenshit to handle seeing he aftermath as he does it. But it's clear right now that there's aftermath to see. Ellen has a hand on Sam and on Jo both, one between Jo's shoulder blades comfortingly, and fingers of her other hand curled over the top of Sam's shoulder as if to keep him in his seat while providing a mother's comfort, his brother's hand white knuckled over the edge of the wall as if he'd been about to leverage himself to his feet and give objection himself. His brother was crying or trying not to cry earlier (he can tell, he can always tell, and that stab of failure at his primary objective is hard to ignore) and is furious now, staring at the lawyers as if he can will himself into the conversation to argue down Crowley's tactics.

Ash is leaned around Jo on the seat to talk to Ellen, voice low but an urgency in his face that seems strange on the typically laid-back stoner, and Dean can see the glow from his lap that's either a tablet or phone hidden behind the wall from the jury and the bailiff—the Harvelles are researching something, and from the looks of it it's not going well. Dean's eyes skim over Charlie beside him, where she seems to be counting jury, before locking on Castiel.

Cas looks _wounded,_meeting Dean's eyes across the room.

Someday, Dean is going to get up the nerve to ask what it's like being on the other side of their relationship, to be the one apparently receiving whatever the hell Dean's putting out at any given time. He's seen Cas recoil before Dean has the time to freak out, or start shifting in his seat and growing hard because Dean was in the mood, and he's seen him even fast asleep curl a protective arm around Dean because he woke up silently terrified, living in his nightmares. Dean's used it, too, laid a hand on Cas's arm and calmed him down just by making himself calmer, though he wasn't thinking about it in terms of them being mates. It's obviously vague, and obviously subconscious, and less comic book telepathy than it is one of those cheap mood rings from a cereal box, but the fact that Cas can read him even that much freaked him out when they met, and now...

He's not sure why none of his family can see it. Even with Castiel's usual stoicism his eyes are red rimmed and creased at the corners like he's in pain, a furrow in his brow. His shoulders are square, his chin level, his posture precise and militaristic, but otherwise he looks like Dean feels.

He _warned_Cas, told him that he didn't want to hitch himself to Dean and all his baggage, and now here it is paying the cost for it. They all are. He's fucking Cas up, screwing with his head.

The old self-loathing has hit in full force by the time he wrenches his eyes away from Cas and looks to the attorneys, the meeting with the judge is breaking. Henriksen flashes him a look that's simultaneously angry and apologetic as he returns to his seat, and Dean doesn't need to know more than that. It was too much to hope they'd shut Crowley down.

"Mr. Winchester, five years ago you were under the employ of Alastair Hawthorne, when..."

"No." He can taste bile, and he flexes his wrists unconsciously, testing against a phantom pain, as he addresses the wood grain of the witness stand in his interruption. "Five years ago Alastair dropped something in my drink at a bar, shoved me into the trunk of his car, and then I spent four months being drugged into heat and sold in shitty bars and empty warehouses. He wasn't my employer, he was my _master."_

_Such an obedient little slut for me, aren't you Dean-o? Just look how you open up and take him. You were made for this._

His chest is tight, his voice reedy with the constriction. There's nothing here, he's free, no cords, no weight pressing him against the concrete, scraping him raw. He's on display up here on the stand, but there's no rack keeping him there. Its his mind that's cracked open and raw and bleeding memories. And like fuck is he going to let some little bastard like Crowley see that.

_"_So now you're alleging that all of your_many_ clients _also_sexually assaulted you?"

_Ah-ah-ah! Good pets know when to beg, don't they? He wants to hear you, bitch. Beg for his knot, Dean-o, and maybe we'll take this off you. You'd like that, wouldn't you, you little slut?_

_"_No, I'm _telling_you that I didn't have any damn 'clients.' Alastair got me first and last, and used everyone in-between like a goddamn tool to keep me in my 'place.' All while making them pay for it." Dean's voice is louder, trying to drown out the whispers in his head, the sibilant sing-song voice that slithers in sometimes when he lets his guard down, resonates through all his nightmares, the voice he has heard every time he's gone into heat for the past five years. He's been relying on Cas to keep it away, keep him safe, like the bitch Alastair told him he was nothing more than.

_I take off the ring and you can come just on some stranger's knot, can't you? He could be anyone and you'd never know. Some sweetheart from when you were younger, taking a piece of that fine ass? Daddy dearest, who let me walk you right past him? That little brother you used to beg to save you? They know this is all you're good for._

He can't swallow, throat burning as he tries, and he's got to focus.

"Perjury is a crime, Mr. Winchester." Crowley's voice is velvet over gravel, and it infuriates him-he grabs hold of that anger before it can slide away, familiar heat to flush out the cold. "You called it rape _after_you were paid..."

_Don't you dare leave your rack dirty, filthy little whore. He paid good money to breed up his bitch. Clench down, keep it all in. That's right. Can't have that little fuckhole getting too loose, you've got another playmate here ready for you. And if you won't beg for him, I'll put your mouth to better use._

"You know what else is a crime, Crowley? _Rape_." The word is barbed-it tears at his throat before hitting the room, sharp and dangerous, and now he's focused again, scowling at Crowley from the stand. He's not testifying any more, he's lashing out while he can. "Two times now some lawyer's managed to get someone out of that because I'm just some Omega who must've been panting for it. And now they're up for trying it again and the person being put trial for rape seems to be me, here and now."

Crowley's next question is right on the heels of his outburst, not giving anyone time to derail Dean with objections or calls to order. "I take it you have some resentment towards those attorneys, and my clients." Stepping forward, closing in on the stand, Crowley goes for the kill.

"Is that why you used the same heat drugs you favored as a prostitute to entrap my clients, and then manipulated the brother of the attorney for your most recent 'rapist' into attacking your first supposed 'rapists?'"

xXx

The ten minute recess isn't a relief. They're prolonging things, forcing him to stay longer, prepared to shove him right back onto the stand once the judge deems everyone cooled down enough to resume trial after that last outburst in the courtroom.

Or when the prosecution's star witness stops puking his guts up in the bathroom like a fucking wuss.

He made it out of the courtroom past them all without giving himself away. Then he bit Cas's head off when he laid a damp paper towel across the back of Dean's neck in the bathroom, recoiling away from being touched, and the hurt look he'd gotten in return as Cas gave him the space he demanded is going to fuck with his head even more. Getting rid of Sam is harder; his gargantuan little brother is leaning against the sink and giving him the solicitous stare through the open door of the stall that Dean hates because it's unfair.

"I didn't know..." Didn't know Dean's head was this fucked up? Didn't know about the drugs Alastair had used? Didn't know this was Crowley's plan to discredit him? He'd figured out about the rapes, he was building a case around it himself. He knew Alastair was going to come up.

"Yeah, well, you weren't supposed to know." Dean finally croaks, leaning his head back against the tile beside the toilet, eyes closed. He's going to burn this fucking suit when this is all done. It feels disgusting now, from the flop sweat and sitting on this damn bathroom floor, even if it doesn't look it-or maybe that's him, the filth creeping under his skin. He wants to scratch it out, peel it away, but he's got enough presence of mind to know that doing the wrong thing right now would freak Sam out. "I'm fine, Sammy."

"Don't..." Dean grimaces at Sam's raised voice bouncing off the tile walls, but it wasn't a _flinch._His brother starts again quieter anyway, as if he spooked some sort of wild animal, and that puts Dean's teeth on edge. "Don't tell me you're _fine_, because you're not. You're pretty far from 'fine.' I hate that word."

"Yeah, and who do we know that's 'fine,' then, Sam? We're all screwed up somehow." Dean leverages himself to his feet, flushing away the evidence of his weakness and shouldering his brother out of the way so he can make use of the sink, cupping his hands beneath the faucet and rinsing his mouth out with water that tastes like rust.

"You could have talked to me, Dean." There's something small and hurt to Sam's voice, and Dean hates to hear it. He slaps the water off and turns to face his brother.

"And said what? What the hell am I supposed to say? And what's the point of dragging you into my problems? You got _out,_Sam. You've got a great life now, and..."

"I was never trying to get away from _you,_Dean! You don't have to do this alone. You've got me, and you've got Cas now, and we _want_to help..."

"Yeah, well, maybe Cas needs to be free of my crap too. Maybe you both do." His gruff interruption finally succeeds in shutting Sam up.

Sam is gaping at him, preparing to launch himself back into arguing, when two sharp knocks come on the bathroom door, announcing Castiel's return before the door opens with a protesting squeak.

Dean doesn't know if Cas heard that last part. He doubts it, since Cas is hardheaded enough to jump right into the argument himself. He's subdued though as he stops a few paces back from Dean, extending their toiletries bag taken from the Impala, back to the letting Dean set the limitations on their relationship, down to how close he can be. "I thought you might want it before they put you back on the stand."

Dean takes the bag without touching Cas, digging through for his toothbrush, and he can feel them watching him, knows it'll be Cas who asks. "What can we do to help?"

Dean snorts bitterly, focused on keeping his hands steady so he doesn't drop the damn toothpaste cap down the drain. "This would be easier without all of you guys watching."

They know he doesn't mean brushing his teeth. He also doesn't mean the two of them; Sam needs to see the court case, even Dean's fucked up end of it. That's just strategy, before he has to be ringleader of this circus. And Cas has seen this all before, coaxed Dean out of these memories and nightmares, stilled him when he needed to keep Dean from hurting himself, and stepping back when Dean's memories made him fear Cas. God knows what Cas has heard from him in his sleep, that makes him cling so tightly.

In reflection, he sees Cas and Sam exchange a look, and Cas seems to draw the short straw again. Behind him, his boyfriend puffs out a sigh, straightens his shoulders, and marches out to the hall to face the ire of Dean's family while asking them to stay out of the rest of Dean's testimony, probably terrified of Ellen and Jo's response to that.

No one can say Cas doesn't have guts.

"He's drawing you into narrative answers. Don't go for it." Sam begins as Dean starts brushing his teeth, all business again, and that _helps_. Dean is rapidly reassembling his mask, and he needs something to fight, something to aim his anger at outside of himself and his disgust at his own break. "Give him yes or no, and short responses, especially about you and Cas. It's not the kind of attorney he is, and it'll throw off his attack." Dean digs out his aftershave, dousing himself with it unnecessarily to hide his scent, and it's comforting to be hidden again. "Henriksen is going to need to redirect question you, to counter the character assassination, that's where you give detail again. Anything you give Crowley, he's going to twist. He's digging at you and Cas's relationship, so end on that in Henriksen's questioning, and make it stick."

"Yeah, okay." Dean agrees, zipping the bag back up, crumpling up the damp paper towel and tossing it into the trash. Sam wants him to dig his heels in and mulishly clam up for a while? That suits him just fine.

"He's still looking to the civil case, which is just me and him. He wants a settlement, neither of us think that's going to end up in the courthouse again except for filing paper. This is his thing. He's trying to spook you both, and me too, to get Cas to pay up."

Dean's stopped by Sam's hand on his shoulder as he reaches for the door: Sam isn't _that_kind of threat, even Dean's screwed up subconscious gets that. He doesn't throw off the touch, letting himself be turned to face his brother as Sam pleads with him again, trying to get the last word in on the argument Cas interrupted.

"You're my big brother, man. You've put up with my shit my entire life... I wish you'd let me help. And Cas is in love with you. I know you feel the same way. Don't. . . Don't do anything stupid, okay? Give this a shot?"

Despite himself Dean laughs sharply, brittle as broken glass. "That's new. What happened to 'he's a killer' and 'he hurt you' crap, Sam?"

Sam opens his mouth, shrugs, and has the good grace to look a little sheepish about his Alpha posturing around Cas. "He's growing on me."

Cas is waiting outside the bathroom when they emerge, and Dean's pretty certain during his conversation with his brother the men's room of the Douglas County courthouse had a scary intense bouncer silently intimidating everyone into going down the hall. Dean doesn't know what Cas said to his family, and where they are right now, but he doesn't want to ask. He's being selfish again, and he can't make himself think about it. He could handle them hearing about how stupid he'd been as a kid, how he'd let these assholes get the drop on him. Alastair is something that's supposed to be locked up in his head, behind steel doors and padlocks and iron bars, and he can't open that vault with them watching. He doesn't want to open it at all.

Cas turns when the door creaks, arms dropping from where they'd been folded across his chest, and he falls in beside Dean as they make their way back to the courtroom, an Alpha at each side. Everyone's already settling back in, and the bailiff seems to be waiting on Dean.

Dean bumps shoulders with his brother (well, bumps his shoulder against his yeti little brother's arm) and jerks his chin at the door. Sam gets the hint, and Dean catches Castiel by the elbow before he can go in, drawing him back. "Five seconds." He promises the bailiff, who presses his lips into a line, but waits beside the door as Sam enters.

He can't just kiss Cas right now, can't make himself go that far when he's already on shaky ground, though he knows it'd help Cas feel better. Cas will hang on to the shaving kit, for now, like he once did Dean's luggage, just like he's reassuring himself Dean can't abandon him with everything Castiel owns in his car.

All Dean has to give him is a little bit of borrowed anger, arming him as best he can.

"He's trying to get under your skin, Cas. I need you to hold it together in there, 'cause I'm. . ." Because he's really _not_. After a few seconds and a searching look, Castiel nods, and that's the best he's getting for now.


	38. Chapter 38

"So, you began your sexual relationship with Dr. Novak after less than twenty four hours because...?"

Crowley is a snake.

"Yes."

And Dean is a smartass.

Arms folded across his broad chest, back straight against the wooden bench seat of the courtroom, Sam Winchester keeps his eyes on the attorney that he can't help but think of as his opponent, even with Henriksen manning the opposing table in the courtroom and Sam just an audience member for this.

With the exception of a few wrong turns where he wanted to believe the best of someone, Sam's always thought himself as pretty good at reading people. It comes in handy sometimes in his profession, and sometimes it's a hindrance: walking into a holding room and just _feeling_ that the guy you've been asked to defend is guilty is something that he struggles with. It's cost him a few big cases that he probably could have won, because he just couldn't make himself take the client.

But there's always someone like Crowley or like Lucifer, ready to sweep in and pick up the case for assholes like the men who attacked Dean. Sam's seen Castiel's elder brother in action before, had the sales pitch given to him, and what it amounts to is a genuine belief they're _superior_. Lucifer, and lawyers like him, see themselves as better than the people he's representing, better than the people he's going up against. Every victory is affirmation of his own ego and self-image. Lucifer and his ilk are the kings in the courtroom and out.

Crowley is a completely different problem. For Crowley it's not about the prestige; it's about the _influence_. Sam doesn't believe for an instant that it's coincidence that the two assailants he's defending are the two that come from money and power: and if Crowley gets them out of this he's not going to be walking away with just a check. They'll be _indebted_ to him, their families ingratiated to him just enough to be _useful_ later on. This is all a business transaction, and he's playing his cards so well that if he wins, even Castiel's own well-to-do family isn't tarnished at all. After all, in his version of events Cas is just a patsy. Crowley's working all the angles. It's strategic, more underhanded than the blatant elitism of others.

To Lucifer, Dean had just been Alastair's whore. Weaker than him and bested easily, and therefore almost personally offensive. To Crowley, Dean's just an obstacle. The only thing standing between him and victory is some no-name high school dropout Omega from a screwed up family, the black sheep socially stunted runaway youngest brother of a rich family and courtroom rival, and a bleeding heart liberal of an attorney from California who hasn't even made a name for himself yet.

And right now, Sam's big brother is frustrating the hell out of Crowley.

"And you just _happened_to end up engaging in sex described as 'ear-piercing' and 'lurid' by the guests at the rather prestigious Oread, all expenses paid by Dr. Novak."

"Sorry, is the question did we have sex, was the hotel overpriced, or is Cas loud during sex?" Dean shrugs, and answers all three before Crowley can clarify, ignoring Castiel's persistent flush to keep his eyes locked on Crowley. "Yes."

Sam's tried to get Dean to talk when he doesn't want to, and been rebuffed his _entire life_. At least for Sam, Dean did it with redirection: his poker face was a quick smile, a quip, and a punch in the shoulder. Crowley is getting stonewalled by sarcasm. Telling Dean to clam up could backfire hard on them and hurt Dean in the eyes of the jury, but at this point Sam _doesn't_ _care._He knew that risk when he suggested this to his brother, but Dean's hurting and this is how he protects himself. It's more important to him that Dean gets out of this without being emotionally flayed than it is they win this time. Already his brother seems slightly more sure of himself, a little more grounded in the present, and beside Sam it doesn't feel like Cas is going to splinter the wood in his white knuckled grasp on the edge of the bench beneath him.

That's worth it, to get Dean past Crowley's attack. This is just the floor show for Crowley: he's still banking on his other witnesses to sink Dean for him, he just wanted this opportunity to tear at the three of them a little, loosen them up, make them a bit more likely to just settle the civil suit. To pay up and bow out.

"So you illegally obtained prescription medications to allow you to engage in a sexual relationship with Dr. Novak with impunity, and no need for responsibility."

"I _responsibly_took birth control. Kinda like Beta ladies do so they don't get knocked up."

When Dean's prodded to give more than one-word answers, he repeats the question back with a yes or a no, and when he gives a leading question Dean snarkily repeats it back with _corrections_. There's a reason every witness in cross-examination is assumed hostile, and Dean is quickly becoming a law school nightmare story.

"Illegally obtained prescription medications. Much like the Slick you took in your previous employment."

Dean doesn't answer, silently judgmental as he waits for an actual question. His jaw is ticking, the twitch of muscle that betrays how hard it is not to reply, and there's something haunted in his eyes. All it takes is a veiled mention of his time with Alastair, and Dean's not entirely present on that witness stand for that moment, though it would take someone who knew him well to catch that.

Sam doesn't want to think about what kind of memories this is dragging up for Dean, but he _has_ to. Here, Crowley's line of questioning about Dean's abduction by Alastair is just a tangent. For Sam, it's going to be the actual _point_ of Dean's testimony. He's going to be putting Dean through those same memories for a larger audience, and Dean's going to have to _talk_ about what it is that haunts him.

The lawyer in Sam knows that Dean needs to open up. The little brother in Sam wants to drag Dean off the stand, beat the crap out of the two assholes sitting across the aisle from him, and sock Crowley in the jaw for good measure. He's not juggling those two sides well, and Cas isn't conflicted at all. Every time Dean slaps back a question about Alastair, or mentions the attack when he was younger, Sam's half convinced if he wasn't sitting there, Cas wouldn't be holding back at all.

It's a verbal sparring match, back and forth, circling around the topics Dean most wants to avoid, and Dean can't fight _back_, but he's refusing to give any ground or let Crowley lead him.

If Crowley draws this out it will show he can't control the courtroom; so he plays it off to the jury, spreading his hands to them, as if he's asking what can be done about Dean as another jab at his background in 'prostitution' is rebuffed. He's adopted a bored, patronizing tone and speaks to Dean without turning to face him, now. "Mr. Winchester, I take it from your increasingly petulant responses that you'll no longer be cooperating with this examination?"

"'Mr. Crowley,'" Dean parrots back, his voice a low drawl that seems to rumble from somewhere deep in his chest, eyes on Crowley's back and head high. "You can take it from my increasingly pissed off responses that I figured out this isn't an 'examination.' Facts don't mean squat to you."

"Your avoidance of certain facts about your past conduct. . ."

"Your Honor." Henriksen has his hands planted on the table, and he's buzzing with frustration. "If Mr. Crowley is done badgering the witness, I'd like the chance to redirect."

"Granted." Crowley's stunt may play well with the jury, but Rufus Turner is watching him with dark, angry eyes. He toed the line on inappropriateness, but Sam foresees the British attorney being called back to the sidebar several more times in the course of this trial and berated. Crowley doesn't seem intimidated by either of them, and he waves a genial hand in Dean's direction.

"Best of luck with him."

Dean doesn't watch as the lawyers trade off who's in front of him; lowering his head, he closes his eyes briefly and lets his breath out, before raising his chin to look at Sam. He doesn't need the significant nod in reminder of how he's supposed to change tracks with Henriksen, and Sam's pretty sure Dean vaguely resents the encouraging and sympathetic look he shoots him.

"Mr. Winchester. . ."

"Yeah." Dean swivels his head, looking Henriksen in the eyes.

"Did you exchange sex for favors or money from Doctor Novak?" It's a straightforward question, instead of Crowley's roundabout, and Dean snorts quietly at the difference between the attorneys.

"No. He didn't beat those guys up to get into my pants, and I never asked him to." But the question is _more_ than that, isn't it? Dean glances at the jury before unconsciously leaning closer to the microphone on the stand. "I'm not a _hooker._ I know they want you to think that, but . . ." Dean's voice falters, and for a moment Sam thinks that's it. That they're done, and Dean's going to shut them down again. Crowley leans forward slightly in his chair at the defense table, eyes sharp.

He should never underestimate Dean.

"What he keeps bringing up, the 'prostitute' crap. . . That was four months of my _family. . ."_Dean jabs a finger in Sam's direction while locking eyes with Henriksen again ". . .searching hospitals and morgues for me and slapping my picture on the side of milk cartons or whatever. I was tied up like a frikkin' animal any time I wasn't locked into the rack for random strangers to _use,_so Alastair could rake in the cash for it. I didn't _ask_ for that, and you couldn't pay _anyone_ enough goddamn money for them to sign up for that shit."

Dean's profanity goes unremarked or unnoticed by the judge in that moment, so Dean takes his momentum and goes with it, knowing he'll be stopped any second. "And there's no way I'd take money from those assholes and sign up for living through what _they_ did to me, again, either."

"Mr. Winchester. . ." Rufus's warning rumble falls into Dean's natural close, but Henriksen's look at him is approving. Sam knows Dean would rather not be working with the man who tried to put Castiel in jail, but this is what Victor Henriksen _does_, and right now Dean is his best bet for sending a pair of repeat offenders to prison. The prosecutor is willing to push the line on maintaining order, too, in order to make an impression.

"Have you ever taken heat-inducing medications or drugs of your own will?"

Dean swipes his tongue across his lips, rubbing his hands over his knees as if his palms are sweating, and closes his eyes. In the audience Sam frowns suddenly, sitting forward on his seat, and beside him Castiel tenses. That wasn't just a tell, it was a distress flare-the most rattled Dean has let himself look since he took the stand again, and both men take notice. Dean's answer doesn't come quickly, and it's coarse and pained when he finds it. He doesn't want to be saying this, and for once his words are carefully chosen.

"Alastair dosed me with the stuff every day, before putting me on display. When I figured out he was putting it in my food I tried not eating, so he started making me swallow them. Couple months in. . . I don't know how long, I uh. . . I couldn't keep track of time there once I was dosed. . ." Jaw bunching, Dean pushes on, determined to spit this out. "Alastair liked to give 'choices.' Couple of times towards the end, that was if I wanted to 'take my medicine' or not. Liked to remind me that it wasn't just the Heat drug, it was the birth control. He started talkin' about how if I wouldn't, he'd still put me out there. That some guys would get off on me _not_ being drugged into it, would like making me take it dry and fighting. And he'd talk about what'd happen to the kid if I got knocked up."

And God help him, Dean chose the drugs. He hated himself for it then, and he hates himself for it still. . . but it was better _he_ was degraded and slowly eroded away than it was thinking about what would happen to a baby in Alastair's 'care.'

Castiel's hands are folded over each other in front of his lips, head bowed, a fine tremor running through him as he sits with his body stooped in on himself. Sam can't tell if he's praying or nauseated. Dean is deliberately avoiding looking at either of them; won't see his brother trying not to cry again, or his mate struggling with hearing Dean's worst memories. He keeps his eyes on Henriksen as the lawyer stops in front of him, a surprising sympathy in his voice.

"You took them under duress."

Dean can't tell if it's a question or supposed to comfort him, to give him some sort of forgiveness for his sins, and he chokes out a bitter laugh, rough and broken. "Yeah. Guess you could say that."

"But never after that." This time it's a question, confirmation for the jury, and Dean snorts again as he shakes his head.

"No. Hell, I can't even handle a normal heat." This time Dean darts a glance at Castiel, continuing once he does. Dean's _smart_, for all his self-deprecating comments about his own intelligence, and he knows how to sway people's opinions. Sam needed the push from Charlie to appeal to the jury emotionally, but Dean does it instinctively, handling the redirect for Henriksen, knowing what the jury needs to hear after the mess of their testimonies. "Cas is helping with that. That whole stunt, with the hotel. . ." Dean rubs the back of his neck, awkward finally about the fact that his entire sex life is under scrutiny, and it's endearing for the jury. ". . . That's the first time in my life I haven't hated it."

Castiel raises his head from his hands and straightens; even sitting to the side Sam swears he can feel it when they make eye contact. There's something uncomfortably intimate about witnessing Castiel and Dean from the outside, like everyone in the room is intruding on a private moment. Sam and Dean can have silent conversations with a few gestures and expressions, but Dean and Cas seem to _connect_ just with a look.

Still, there's something Sam doesn't like about the bitter twist to Dean's lips as he offers Cas a smile across the courtroom, something in his brother that seems to deflate now that he's done fighting. "Cas is a good guy. He had to put up with a lot of crap for trying to help me."

It's the word choice. It's the guilty sloop of Dean's shoulders as he looks back to Henriksen, then the slow rise to his feet when he's dismissed from the witness stand. Sam just _knows,_suddenly, what Dean has planned. Because Dean used the past tense about Cas's help. Because with the way he said it, it's like he's decided once again that he's beyond what can be helped, or that helping him is a burden.

Sam's still staring at his brother as Cas slips past him on the bench to meet Dean in the aisle, the Alpha awkward and unsure if he's allowed to touch Dean as he guides him out of the courtroom again. True to her word, Charlie kept the rest of the family out of the courtroom, but they're there now, ready to go back inside. Sam's still frowning to himself as his family envelops Dean and Castiel outside the door, Ellen and Jo wrapping Dean in a hug, his brother's chin resting on Jo's head for a moment before he ruffles her hair, their conversation a buzz that Sam only barely pays attention to, promises to call soon. Ellen squeezes Dean's shoulders a last time before letting him go, reaching for Cas who pats her back awkwardly as he's hugged in turn.

"You're not staying?" Charlie is eavesdropping on the assurances between Dean and his family, the redhead seeming to linger just outside of the family group, a step behind and to the side of Sam.

"Nah." Dean laughs, but it's humorless. "Crowley's up next, and I don't want to hear what his witnesses have to say about me. I've heard it all before." He extends a hand to Ash as he talks, hauled in to get a thump to his shoulder, then released. "Just text me a verdict when it's over."

Charlie nods slowly, and seems surprised when a moment later Dean pulls her in for a hug as well. There's no hesitation; she melts into it, squeezing Dean harder in return, and Sam blinks. He never really considered it, never thought about it outside of his friendship and working relationship with Charlie. . . but in her way, Charlie has lived in more isolation than any of them. She's only known Dean a few days, and already she's reluctant to let go of him. Like he knows he's needed, like he knows that Charlie could use it, Dean palms the back of her head and tucks her in closer for a moment, before ruffling her hair just like he did Jo's, and stepping back.

Dean's always cared about what other people need, about taking care of them. Sam's always loved that about his big brother. . . and he's learned to worry about it, too.

"I'll walk you two to the car." He shouldn't; he should be back in the courtroom as Crowley swears in his witnesses, but he wants a moment alone with his brother. They fall into step again, the three of them, but its Dean who's leading the way, the most anxious to get out of the courthouse.

Heat seems to make the air above the pavement shimmer, and the moment they step out of the cooled courthouse into the summer sunlight Sam can feel sweat prickling his skin, his shirt clinging between his shoulder blades beneath the suit jacket. Dean strips out of his before they're across the parking lot, unbuttoning his sleeves and collar of his shirt as if they're restraining him, fingers nearly tearing the buttons free in his need to be loosed. Sam wonders if it's the thought of Alastair's rack haunting his brother, and the thought makes his stomach clench.

Castiel eases the suit jacket out of Dean's grip without touching him, folding it over his own arm, but with a look between them he steps away to tuck the jacket and bag into the back seat of the Impala and roll the windows down to let the car cool down, catching on to the fact that the brothers are about to have a discussion he's not invited into.

"Thanks for coming down here, Sammy. You saved our asses. You're good at this. . ." Dean rakes a hand through his hair, but this is more redirection and Sam isn't letting himself be swayed yet.

"Of course I'm here. You're my _brother_, Dean." As nervous as Cas seems to be to touch Dean right now, as if he's had his permission revoked, Sam doesn't hesitate to—long arms hook his brother in, wrapping him in a bear hug that Dean returns. Even with all the sasquatch jokes, it's regularly surprising that Dean seems _smaller_ now than his mind will let him imagine his big brother, who's always tried to protect him. "You remember the night I left for Stanford. . .?"

Dean freezes in the hug, too stiff in Sam's arms, thrown by the question.

"You had this look. Like you were biting the bullet, taking yourself out of the picture. Said I could have a better life . . ."

"And I was right." Dean thumps Sam between the shoulders and pulls away, and it's too soon after his testimony for Sam to be comfortable holding on when Dean wants free. There's a brittle quality to Dean's smile, though the pride is genuine. "All grown up and a hell of a lawyer. You call me, when that emancipation paperwork goes through. And lemme know what you need from me, while we're suing the government." Whatever Dean's thinking about doing, it isn't effecting his decision to take this battle as far as he has to, to try and force change.

"And I want to know everything about my niece or nephew. I'm gonna be there when the kid's born."

"Yeah, I hope to see you both then." Sam includes Castiel into the comment as the Alpha approaches just close enough to lean against the passenger side door of the Impala near them, but he keeps his eyes on Dean as he says it, noting the cant of his head, the way his lips press together and how he breaks the stare Sam has leveled on him by moving toward the car.

Dean's never been good at goodbyes.

Castiel's grip is firm and Sam uses the handshake solemnly offered to him to pull Cas into another hug. Cas is _good_ for Dean—there's sworn testimony to prove it, even. Castiel fought for Dean, but Sam's not sure if Cas is ready to fight to_keep_ him if it's Dean who he'd be fighting.

"Thank you, Sam. For everything."

Sam chuffs, and thumps Cas between the shoulder blades. "You're the one who hired me, man." This may be Dean and Castiel's chance to get away from the courtroom, but Sam's still going to be deep in this for a long time yet; he has a civil battle he has no intention of letting go to court, and an opportunity to make his brother's assailants miserable for the rest of their lives in legal woes. He'd be lying if he said that this entire mess didn't increase his desire to destroy Dean's assailants legally, and Cas made that possible. Whether he realizes it or not, he also made it possible for Sam to start the civil rights battle he's been considering for years, gave Dean the catalyst he needed and the support.

"Keep an eye on him, Cas." It's a warning phrased as a goodbye, and Castiel's eyes narrow in confusion as he steps back from Sam, head canting to the side. Sam can't give him more than that, though. Because it's Dean's choice, not his.

The Impala starts up with a roar, and Cas ducks into the car as Dean raises the hand off the steering wheel to wave goodbye to his brother.

xXx

The car interior isn't allowed to stay silent; silence means talking, and Dean can't handle that right now. Castiel folds himself against the passenger side door, cheek against the seatbelt and eyes sliding closed as the air ruffles his hair, whistling through the car and mixing with the sound of Led Zeppelin. He's never been the type to push for conversation, and he can wait until Dean is ready to talk about what happened in the courtroom.

Dean drives as if he's escaping, as if any second someone from Lawrence could try to pull him back to that town, gunning the engine and flooring it the second they hit open road. Castiel doubts either of them will ever return to Kansas again, and regardless of whatever lingering fear he has of starting over once again, Castiel won't say he'll miss this place either. But he doesn't want to reach their destination _this_ quickly, either.

He needs the chance to transition and shake the dust of Kansas off of his boots before they throw themselves directly into their new lives in Sioux Falls. Here, inside the Impala, feels _safe._Here Dean is free, in control, and determined. Castiel watches him through slitted eyes; he's too tense to doze, and Dean is still too upset by having his life ripped apart in the courthouse to sing along or slouch comfortably into his seat.

On their way to the lake, they were escaping a trial. Here, they're simply taking it on the road with them, the silence from the courthouse weighing on them both. No matter how far they get from Lawrence today, a group of strangers and Dean's closest family are having lies about them poured into their ears, as Crowley does his best to discredit them. In Castiel's pocket, his phone is a lead weight—he's tempted to reach for it, to text Charlie or Jo for news of the courtroom, but he has no way of defending Dean from here. He doesn't expect news from Gabriel about his intended break-in at Lucifer's office until later in the evening, and for now he's just. . . _useless_, a passenger on everyone else's voyages.

They're thirty minutes outside of Kansas City and into Missouri before Castiel catches sight of a highway marker going by, and he straightens slowly, turning to look out the window and get his bearings, brow furrowing. "We're going the wrong way."

"If we were going to South Dakota, yeah." There's something too light, too forced, about Dean's retort. It quashes any momentary hope that the change of direction is just because Dean feels the same about dragging this trip out a little.

They're headed toward Illinois; towards Castiel's own past, and the family he ran away from. They could be at Emmanuel's by nightfall, with the way Dean is driving. Everything Castiel owns is loaded into this car, and Dean is bringing him back towards his family.

"It's not what you're thinking." Dean interrupts, before Castiel can find the voice to protest.

"It looks a great deal as if you're moving me back to Illinois and dumping me."

"Which is why I said '_it's not what you're thinking.'"_Dean bites out at him, sharp and angry. After everything today, it's no surprise how quick to surface his temper is, and Castiel forces himself to back down, hands bunching into fists on his knees, eyes sliding to the window to watch mile markers zip past them. They're both tense, and stressed—picking a fight right now is counterproductive. He needs to _think,_and he needs a chance to figure out what's on Dean's mind.

Dean's voice is even again when he starts speaking after a few moments, spinning the volume control to turn the music down to a low buzz around them. "You want to meet your dad, Cas. And you need. . . you need to see your family again. It's been eating at you, man, ever since Gabriel showed up."

Castiel doesn't deny that, but he doesn't think that's the end of it, either. Dean is giving him a choice, preparing himself for the idea that when presented with the chance to face his past, to reclaim a life with his privileged family in Illinois, Castiel won't choose _him_.

This is still about the trial, and about how damaged Dean sees himself. This is about the recently revealed scars left by Alastair as much as it is about Castiel's own past. Closing his eyes, Castiel forces himself to relax, and then nods slightly. If anything, Castiel's agreement just makes Dean's forced humor worse, his voice tighter.

"Okay. …Good." Dean's fingers flex on the steering wheel, his shoulders tense, and he watches the road intently rather than look at Cas beside him. "Good. We'll get dinner, find a hotel somewhere in Illinois, so you can call your family and let them know you're coming, instead of showing up unannounced."

And where they can wait, while pretending they're not, to hear whether a jury of strangers buys the lies concocted about Dean—whether or not the legal system believes, as an Omega, that Dean has the right to tell a group of Alphas no.

Despite his determination to let Dean make the first move, Castiel finds himself reaching out to touch Dean's shoulder, reassuring him silently. His hand captured quickly, fingers lacing together tightly with Dean's on the seat between them, and though Dean still can't look at Cas it's at least a start.


	39. Chapter 39

Dean is quiet and withdrawn, and the afternoon wears on as the silence from their contacts in the courthouse becomes more and more oppressive. Every hour that ticks past is another witness on the stand for Crowley, and they can't help imagining people coming forward from five years past to discuss how 'eager' Dean was to take a stranger's knot, establishing his usefulness only as an object for an Alpha's pleasure.

They don't talk about it. They don't talk about _anything_, and Castiel isn't even certain where to start.

Five o'clock rolls past with a text from Charlie telling them they'll reconvene court again tomorrow, because Crowley still isn't done with his theatrics. An hour of tense silence after that, Castiel begins watching the exit signs, asking Dean to pull over outside of Jefferson City.

Biggersons isn't exactly gourmet cuisine, but with Castiel's depleted resources it's what he can afford. He waits until Dean has a coffee in his hands, until he's slumped into the cracked vinyl seat and is watching the cars in the parking lot, before he finds a way to try and break the tension. "The last time I saw Claire, she was a preschooler. The night after the funeral I stopped by Amelia's to say goodbye, and Claire ran outside to see me . . . She thought I was Jimmy for a moment. I made her cry when I told her that I wasn't her father." Picking at the peeling lamination of the menu in front of him with his thumbnail, Castiel frowns. "She's in middle school, now."

It's a baited hook, and they both know it. He's counting on Dean's curiosity about Castiel's past to draw him in, and trusting that his genuine nervousness will give Dean voice again. Going home may not be his idea, but he'll use it now as he has to, to keep Dean's mind off of the trial going on without them.

"Kids grow up a lot in eight years." Dean settles on, green eyes fixed on Cas instead of the menu he seems to have memorized. "Besides, you kept in touch, right?"

Castiel shrugs slightly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing because Dean knows the truth of that already. His brothers he abandoned, but he's watched Claire grow up in photographs and letters. Once the waitress returns to take their order, Dean takes the burden of carrying the conversation off of him. "The drawings and school pictures. . . You were sending her mom money, weren't you? Up until you lost your job at the hospital."

"Jimmy's trust fund went back to the family after he died, rather than Amelia. Lucifer's doing. And his life insurance policy went into paying his medical bills, and for the funeral." He didn't need the money, not with his Spartan lifestyle, and he wanted to ensure his brother's family was provided for. The majority of his paycheck went to his niece, his sister-in-law, and his _father_, it transpires. It probably wasn't enough for Amelia to live off of without working, but it was a help.

But that's not what Dean is going for. Dean's trying to sway him, remind him of what's in Illinois waiting for him, if he chooses that life instead of Dean's—Dean's building on the obligation Cas feels to his brother's family, while shouldering the guilt of Castiel losing his job again. "It wasn't the plan, for me to support her forever. I felt it was a better use of my money. I didn't anticipate that I could ever have a family of my own. . ."

As soon as he says the words, he wants them back. Dean frowns into his coffee, shoulders drawing in, and stares at the beverage like it will have answers for him. "You _do_want to knock me up."

No, right now he wants to undo the last five minutes, and find a lighter conversational track for them to start with. It's been a while since he's struggled this much to orient them in discussion, and he's handling it less gracefully than he'd hoped. They can't talk about their day, or their week, because that's what Castiel wants to get them away from with this, but everything relates back to the trial now and this to the segment of testimony Dean finds most damning about himself.

Resting his head on his hand, Castiel rubs at the ache in his temple and closes his eyes.

"Someday, I hope we can discuss raising a family. But I have no practical experience with children. Which was what I was _actually_ going to attempt to discuss, regarding Claire."

"Sorry, did I veer us off the approved conversational itinerary for frikkin' Biggersons?" Dean's words are thick with sarcasm, prickly and defensive. Being jabbed at by Crowley has him looking for a fight he can win, but he's not the only one who's had his words twisted and weaponized against him, today. Their teenaged waitress clears her throat uncomfortably as she stands beside them, holding their plates, and the twin glares she receives for the interruption has her hands shaking as she serves them, fries spilling onto the table as she flees as soon as their plates touch the table.

It's a jarring indicator of how they're coming across, the tension mounting between them, and Castiel sighs as he chases down fries on the table, neatly stacking them to one side of his plate, not chancing letting himself look up at Dean as he does. "I'm sorry. I didn't. . . This was not how I anticipated our date going."

There are times Castiel swears he can feel Dean's emotions shifting; it's not necessarily his scent, or an expression, it's like a change in the air around him. There's uncertainty, now—Cas has no idea what direction their conversation is going to take, but he knows something he said just threw Dean for a loop, and the confusion is evident in his tone. "This is supposed to be a date?" A note of incredulity creeps into his words. "At Biggersons."

Raising his head, Castiel shifts self-consciously, and the first thing he can think to say sounds so pathetic that he grimaces through explaining his choice. ". . . Their sign said that they have pie."

Expressions war with each other before Dean chuffs quietly, wry amusement winning out. Cas is awkward and floundering, and effectively broke or not he's trying to do something for Dean, remembering from their first time together how much he enjoyed pie, all while working without any 'practical experience' in dating, either.

Cas is surprised when Dean tugs him across the table by his bedraggled courtroom tie, meeting him half-way in a kiss, and then he's just grateful for it. Grateful for Dean tabling the discussion of children for later, and for him taking over _fixing_ this between them before their day can get any worse. For Dean temporarily conquering his ghosts and insecurities and genuine terror of being used, while giving Castiel permission to touch him again. He doesn't realize how far he's risen off of his seat to surge into the kiss until someone wolf whistles on the other side of the diner at their display, and his tie is released suddenly.

He falls back into his seat on the bench a little breathlessly, and Dean's obviously smug at completely gaining the upper hand with him as he squirts ketchup onto his plate for his fries, otherwise acting entirely unaffected. If this is going to be their first planned 'date,' Dean's going to take the wheel on this. He needs the control that gives him, right about now, even if he's not sure what his 'plan' is; whether he wants this between them to fall apart now, when he can control the fallout and before Cas is in too deep to make a real choice, if he wants to strip away any illusions he has about what Cas really wants from him, or if he wants Cas to choose _him_. No matter how tonight shakes out, though, he's going to be the one calling the shots on it. It's a date? Fine. Then it'll be a Winchester date.

"Eat your sandwich, Cas."

They'll get back on the road tomorrow.

xXx

For the first time in years, Dean makes the conscious decision not to splash himself in aftershave and scrub his skin raw before stepping into a bar. Even having changed into layers of flannel and unseasonable leather and denim he feels exposed for it, but defiant in a way he never has been. Something about taking a stand to defend himself against sexist assholes has him ready to _fight_, too. The itch under his skin that says he's being leered at by the drunks at this Missouri bar isn't making him ashamed of what he is, for once, it's just feeding his anger at what they think that_means_ about him, about all Omegas.

Castiel follows at his heels, the reappearance of Jimmy's trench coat over his rumpled courtroom suit saying more about his own current state of mind than he probably realizes. This isn't Cas's idea of a date, but Dean isn't going to go watch some chick flick, or let the guy spend money he doesn't have out of some misplaced romantic tendencies. They'll do this Dean's way.

But the fact that their pie is waiting for them in the mini refrigerator in the motel room he got them across the street is a promise of sorts whether Cas realizes that or not.

Castiel still puts back whisky like it's water when it's placed in front of him, and hell if Dean doesn't admire that about the former priest even more in the context of a bar than he did when Cas was drinking it alone in a church. He needs them both to loosen up a little, but he's not here for them to try and drink each other under the table. Smirking, he drops his one of his own last few crumpled bills onto the bar and grabs them both a beer, before winding his way through tables towards the back corner, Castiel following him like a shadow, silent and watchful.

"You ever play pool, Cas?" Dean knows the answer, but it doesn't stop him from looking back for confirmation in Castiel's solemn head shake. As Dean prowls towards the rack on the wall, looking over pool cues, he knows he has Cas's attention as he explains picking a stick, being wary of bar provided equipment and checking to make sure they're not warped or too worn to be any use. He weighs one in his hands, sliding his cupped hand along it to make sure it's straight and that the wrap isn't piss-poor or too short for them to a good grip, and Castiel ends up taking a heavy gulp of his beer and staring before Dean settles on a cue for each of them, hand sliding along the smooth wood as Cas accepts his.

Yeah, teaching someone how to play pool is the oldest trick in the book for Dean's idea of a 'date,' but the fact that he's doing this with an Alpha instead of some Beta chick he's picked up at the bar requires very little adaptation, and Cas is a pretty easy mark. Dean already knows he's into him. Of course, he also knows that Cas isn't the only one watching him right now, and it's an effort to make himself relax anyway.

His hands are deft, trained, as he racks and arranges the balls on the table, and bows to slide them into place, flipping the triangle rack in his hands and then waving Cas to his side. "Alright. C'mere. I'm gonna break." Dean glances over his shoulder, and smirks slowly at Cas's rapt stare. "I'd tell you to watch, but you're kinda ahead of me there."

Cas shuffles a step closer, stopping with the base of his stick resting on his shoe and his free hand rubbing the back of his neck. They've been shacked up since the day they met, as Crowley liked to remind everyone, but Cas can _still_ blush like he's been caught out doing something wrong for really liking what he's seeing. "You are very . . . confident, in the context of this game. I'm not used to this." Cas admits, and he licks his lips and stares as Dean bends over the felt, lining up the break.

"Well, you saw how Jo plays. She learned that from me." Dean rolls his eyes when Cas's head jerks, surprised by the break because he was busy watching Dean handle the stick instead of the game itself. "I'm stripes. You're solids. Only hit the white ball, but don't let it go into a pocket. Knock all yours in. The eight ball, that's the black one, that's last. First person to get the eight ball in after clearing theirs off the table wins."

Castiel frowns faintly at the table, taking in the layout of the game, and he nods his understanding. Now that Dean's talking instead of moving and bending, Cas is thinking with his head instead of his libido, as if he has to study this game like he would a patient. It's the same look he gets when he's squaring off against a cookbook—stubborn, determined, and . . . like with all his efforts at cooking. . . pretty much doomed to lose this battle too. Dean grins despite himself, shaking his head and getting the measure of Cas.

Cas stands like he's waiting for the cue ball to attack him so he can stab it, like he's going to smite the damn thing. Honestly, the man was practically tailor-made to be the ideal for this ploy. Setting his stick and his beer down, Dean prowls closer and stops Cas before he can make his first shot. Cas stills instantly when Dean lays a hand on his hip and steps up behind him, and it's headier than he thought it would be to take the lead. For a moment, he's forgotten about the rest of the bar, and the court case, and their crappy lives, and kids, Crowley or Alastair, and focuses on how Cas responds to being tugged back flush against Dean to take him the right distance from the table, and how pliable he is when Dean wedges a foot between his shoes to kick his feet farther apart and widen his stance.

This has always been a coping technique of his, and it still works after all these years.

"You're looming, and you're too tight."

Dean knows exactly what he's doing when he slides a hand up the smooth fabric of the trench coat to the back of Cas's neck, the other pressed low against Cas's stomach, and folds him over the table. Cas is an _Alpha_, and he's letting himself be manhandled by an Omega, regardless of his instincts. He can feel Cas tense beneath him, and Dean would bet money he doesn't have that Cas is imagining turning the tables on this position right here. He's pretty sure if this wasn't a public space, he'd probably be pinned over this table the second Cas got the chance, after this teasing.

"Please tell me you didn't teach Jo this way." Castiel's voice is low and sardonic, but Dean can hear the telling rasp of his voice, and he rests his chin on Cas's shoulder for a moment as he laughs.

"Jealous, Cas?" Castiel turns his head slightly, nearly cheek to cheek with Dean, and raises an eyebrow as if it's a completely ridiculous question. "Different technique, same principles though. Just keep your mind on the game."

Of course, he has no intention of letting Cas do that. Their height difference is perfect for this, for him to cradle his boyfriend back up against him as he angles him, breathing against the shell of his ear as he brings his hands in and instructs Cas on how to hold the stick properly, how to let it glide in one hand but grip it firmly at the base with the other, and the air temperature rises again, hot and humid like the shower where Dean first demonstrated a similar technique in a much more intimate manner.

Whatever else is strained between them right now, _this_ seems to be working just fine once Dean stops overthinking it. Maybe if they could turn their issues off they can just enjoy _this_ for tonight, the easy way they come together physically.

A bray of laughter drifts too close; drunk and abrasive, breaking the spell of the moment.

"You wanna play pool, you should do it with someone who knows how to handle his stick." Dean jolts as a drunk smacks a hand against his ass, squeezing to cop a feel, and Cas fouls what would have been a perfect shot as he clamps down on the stick in his hands like his first instinct is to club the guy in the face with it.

Dean grips Castiel's shoulder in warning, using their proximity to keep him from doing something stupid, and murmurs "_Trust me_" in his ear before straightening and stepping away, a tight smile on his face and a sarcastic quip on his lips. "I bet you get lots of practice 'handling your stick' on your own."

The asshole's brow creases as he tries to figure out if he just got insulted, and Dean dimples, playing up how amused he is at his own joke. Because he knows he can take this guy. And he knows how this is going to go.

"Either quit with footsie and play the goddamn game, or ditch the clothes and make this interesting for all of us, sweetheart."

If Dean didn't have Sam in his life for a sense of scale, this guy would seem pretty big. As it stands, he wasn't raised to be intimidated by size, which helps because it always seems like it's the biggest jackass in the room who feels like they most need to prove their Alpha status. By contrast, Castiel is probably five inches shorter and forty pounds lighter, but Dean would still bet on him in a fight.

Just like he'd bet on himself in pool.

It's been a long time since he's done this particular shtick, the Omega insulting an Alpha's hyper-masculinity to get him betting, and even when he was younger and he and Sam needed the money a hell of a lot more, this wasn't his favorite con to get it. His Omega status was always too raw a topic, back then, and there was an edge of fear beneath his bravado. He's done being afraid. It takes a few pointed glares at Castiel to keep him from giving them away by pointing out that Dean doesn't really have the cash to be betting, and a hand on his shoulder physically pushing him down into a seat to keep him from bristling every time the jackass calls Dean 'sweetheart' or steps too close to him when circling the table, claiming the first move.

He could probably fund an extended road trip this way if he played it up a bit-drag it out, make this best out of three and get the guy really throwing money at him-but this is Cas's 'date,' and Dean's just proving a point now. And if that point involves completely trashing this guy's ability to play pool by clearing the table, well, it's not Dean's fault the guy thought he was just exaggerating his knowledge of pool to cozy up to Cas. Cas is getting a hell of a lesson watching him, that's for sure, and Dean's attuned enough to Castiel's moods and expressions to know that as prickly as he is about the guy being near Dean, he's enjoying the show as his mate knocks him down a few pegs.

Sinking the eight ball after bogarting the table is satisfying, but not as satisfying as what comes next when the guy makes the mistake of grabbing Dean's wrist when he goes to collect the money, squeezing hard enough that Dean thinks he can feel the bones grate together. "Uppity bitch. You need a real Alpha to put you in your place. . ."

Dean steps into the threat, lowering his voice to a rumble and narrowing his eyes. "You wanna say that again. . . ?"

Breath that stinks of halitosis and cheap beer washes over Dean's face as the Alpha sneers, fisting his other hand in Dean's shirt and hauling him in. "I said any Alpha who lets an Omega get away with riding their ass, and mouthing off when he should show some respect, doesn't know how to keep his bitch in line. . ."

Dean grins, green eyes dangerous as he nods. "That's what I thought you said. I just wanted your attention on me for a second." Dean nods slightly to direct the Alpha's attention behind him. "Because _he_ has something to say about that."

Belying Dean's words, Castiel sticks with the classics and silently sucker punches the guy as Dean twists out of his grip as if they choreographed the move.

It's a fitting sort of symmetry, Dean thinks, that they're back to this again. If Cas had just stood up at the Roadhouse, instead of maneuvering Jo into running interference, this is probably a lot like how they would have met. Maybe that's why he set this all up, why he brought them here and played into this. It's a dumb idea, and Sam would probably have a thing or two to say about it given they _just_ got out of a trial for assault, but Dean's keyed up and feeling like something was stolen from him by that courtroom; the sense of control and clean cause-and-effect he has in every dive bar he's ever been to.

That doesn't mean he intends to let this become a fight. He's reckless, but he's not _stupid_.

Pool stick tangling between the guy's ankles as he's rearing to take a swing at Castiel, Dean upends him neatly onto the floor of the bar, and rests the butt of the stick against the hollow of his throat lightly, a boot grinding down against his chest to keep him pinned, voice too cheerful. "Trust me, you want to stay down. And give the man my money."

Thankfully for everyone the guy stays put as Cas leans in and snatches the money Dean won from his hand, though Cas would probably prefer to throw a couple more punches-he's as wound up as Dean is, he just plays it off better. Cas lets himself be hauled out of the bar, Dean dropping one of the bills from his winnings onto the bar in front of the completely disinterested bartender. He knew he picked the right kind of joint.

He's on Cas before they're completely in their motel room, slamming the Alpha up against the cheap hollow door with a thunk and kissing him like it's a battle for dominance, a challenge Castiel answers by giving as good as he gets, fisting his hands in Dean's shirt and using the grip to keep him close while dragging him into the room. The mirror mounted to the dresser rocks as Cas crashes into the drawers, but he's too tangled up in the sleeves of his shirt and blazer and trenchcoat to really care, as Dean tries to rid him of all three layers at once, and as soon as he gets his hands free he has them on Dean.

It's fast and rough, and neither of them is really certain who's 'winning' by the time Dean is hoisted onto the edge of the dresser with his legs wound around Cas's waist and a fist tangled in his hair. Cas winces at the heel driven into his back as Dean directs him, and muffles himself by biting at Dean's freckled shoulder as Dean scores his blunt nails down Cas's back when he hits just the right angle.

He likes that. They both do.

Somebody in the next room pounds on the wall irately, a muffled voice yelling for them to shut the hell up, and Dean answers by planting a hand against the mirror for leverage, palming Cas's ass to haul him in hard, and making more noise-palm dragging down the glass making it squeak, and the frame thumping against the wall.

"Dean..." Cas sounds pained, and embarrassed, and turned-on all at once and Dean is about to snicker when he finds himself no longer balanced by anything, Cas's arms like a vice around his waist. He's free-falling onto the bed before he really gets the chance to process the change of scenery, thumping into the sagging mattress. The fact that Cas, for all he looks like he's been swallowed by suits and trenchcoats and diminished by them, is all lean muscle and can fight and fuck and even manhandle Dean from time to time, is hot as hell. Cas is on him again quickly, using crawling up Dean's body as an opportunity to awkwardly kick off the slacks he's left bunched around his ankles in answer to Dean's haste.

Cas looks like he wants to talk, or to kiss Dean, or otherwise gentle what they've been doing into something less like a quick fuck and more like 'making love,' and that's not what Dean wants right now, so he doesn't let it happen. He's still riding the high of a confrontation, still on the edge of fight-or-fuck, and he Cas needs to get a clue and stick with the program. So he flips them; grappling Cas down onto the bed in a move more suited to a bar fight than a bedroom, knees pinning Cas's wrists to the bed. He wants a fight, but some part of him thrills at how Cas goes still beneath him instead, blue eyes wide and fixed on Dean like he's something dangerous and beautiful, something to be revered and maybe a little wary around. That's what he wanted-what he brought Cas into that bar for in the first place, though he didn't know it at the time. Then, he thought it was about sharking at pool, about being in his element. Some asshole making a crack about Dean's alpha needing to handle him, teach him some 'respect,' needled him in just the wrong way when respect is something no one ever affords him for what he can do once they know he's been bested before.

Cas, even Sam, they forgot. He saw them there in the courtroom, picturing him small and battered and broken, bleeding out and shattered, or captive and abused, and when they looked at him like that he could feel it tearing at him. Here and now, Cas knows that when Dean doesn't want to be touched he damn well won't be able to touch him. When he releases Cas's wrists only to take them and position Cas's hands on his hips, it's not permission: it's an order he damn well better follow. Cas steadies him as he repositions himself, high astride Cas's hips as he cants himself back and bears down. He's tightening himself up as best be can; he wants to feel every inch as he slides down onto Cas again, down to the widening base of his cock where Dean can feel his knot forming, a stretch and burn and sense of fullness and closeness that Cas has taught him to crave.

Dean needs this. Not just the orgasm they work together now to reach, or the power of being the one in command. He needs Cas-the way he looks at him, the way he lets Dean set his boundaries but not his defenses, the way he genuinely cares. He trusts Dean, and loves him. Cas would probably follow him anywhere.

It's going to kill Dean to lose this, no matter what Cas says about how he'll be the one dealing with most of the fallout of an abandoned mating. But he can't keep asking Cas to give up everything for him. And he can't keep expecting that respect when he doesn't deserve it.

He's gone numb, the thought like poison creeping through his mind. He can fight the law because the law screws with every Omega in the US, he can fight the assholes of the world because they're assholes and should be fought, but he can't fight the truth. The truth is he wouldn't have to fight to keep Cas-all he'd have to do is ask the guy to stay, and Cas would because he loves Dean. And that's the one thing Dean can't do,_because_ he loves Cas.

The fight's gone out of him. He lets himself be tugged into Cas's arms as Castiel rocks into him, stroking Dean's skin like he's petting him, knot catching and grinding his prostate, flooding him with warmth that doesn't quite manage to chase away the ice in his veins. In a little while once they're untied he'll get their slices of pie from the fridge and pretend this is all fine, pretend he didn't leave his tattered self-respect back in that courtroom, pretend he isn't ready to tear them apart to save Cas's. He'll put on a liar's grin and tease Cas a little for this evening, linger in bed with Cas until checkout, and hate himself for it.

And then he'll let Cas go.

xXx

Dean's growing depression is pervasive and heartbreaking. No matter how hard Dean works to make sure Cas can't see it, he can still feel it. He can't touch it, though, even when he's touching Dean. It doesn't stop him from trying, holding his lover tighter, soothingly rubbing his back as they're knotted together, offering him pie like a tribute after.

Through the end of their dinner, and teaching Cas how to play pool, Dean had seemed like himself-a little brittle, but enjoying himself even if he wasn't wholly in the moment. Now the mood has crashed, though Dean smiles brighter and laughs louder.

Cas can't stop himself from 'clinging' once they're going to sleep, arm tucked over Dean and his head pillowed on Dean's chest, listening to his heartbeat, a leg thrown over his shins to keep him. Dean doesn't push him away, running a hand through his hair again and again until Cas is sure it's an even more hopeless mess than usual, but even so Dean's a million miles away, slowly drifting off.

"I love you." Cas finds himself saying into the silence, hoping it helps, hoping it hooks Dean back. But as Dean ruffles his hair one last time and presses a kiss to the top of his head, Cas knows that isn't enough, and there's something sad and tired about Dean's response.

"I know."

When morning dawns, Sam calls to ask Dean something for the day's trial continuation. Dean throws on some clothes and steps out of the room to take the call, and Cas finds himself listening for the rumble of the Impala starting without him. He's far more afraid of losing Dean than any of the possessions in the car. He dresses quickly, tossing their things into the overnight bag carelessly, and bolts out the door as soon as he gets his shoes on.

Unnoticed, Cas watches Dean finish the conversation with Sam, paying more attention to his motions, his posture and his tone than his words. Dean finishes the conversation with a quip that sounds relaxed enough, but he is braced with his back against his car, shoulders slooped, chin down and eyes closed.

Something-Cas's footstep on the gravel lot, the strange sense for each other they seem to have developed, or Dean's protective instinct-alerts Dean that Castiel is nearing, and by the time he's crossed the sidewalk Dean is smiling at him again, hands tucked in his pockets, by all appearances fine and ready for their trip.

It's astounding how talented he is at hiding his own pain. And people think to call Castiel stoic.

"So, where to first?"

xXx

Emmanuel and Daphne Allen have clearly done right by themselves, and cruising the Impala to a stop by the curb of their meticulously maintained lawn, Dean can't help but feel he stands out as much in this clean cut suburban neighborhood as his Impala does next to driveways each with a Prius or Camry. It's a soccer mom kind of neighborhood, a made-for-TV-movie suburbia, and Daphne plays right into that.

Daphne falters when she notices Dean behind Cas as they walk up the drive, and then her eyes widen in surprise as she really takes a look at Cas, noting all the tell-tales that this isn't her husband home from his morning lecture at the university a little early after all. She looks like she's seen a ghost, and given she'd just joined the family when Cas was deployed, given she only really knew Jimmy and not Cas, maybe she is. She blinks twice before greeting him.

"Castiel...?"

Castiel's sister-in-law is sweet enough-she fusses over Cas, hanging up his coat and Dean's jacket, and she ushers them towards the chairs in a neat little sitting room that looks like it was special ordered from Better Homes and Gardens. But it's unsettling in ways Dean never expected, and worse when moments later the door opens again and admits Emmanuel.

It's as if someone took Castiel and Dean, and neatly edited out their imperfections. Gone is Cas's messy hair, replaced with a neat part and a smooth shave to Cas's perpetual stubble. Cas can make a dry cleaned suit look rumpled, but Emmanuel looks like he irons his slacks and starches his socks, to go with his Mister Rogers cardigan. Or maybe Daphne does that for him. Daphne, who is pretty and slim with huge green eyes and soft brown curls, and the portrait of what Dean figures the world thinks he should have been: the good-girl Omega mate, genuinely happy to see her husband home, kissing him on the cheek as she leads him into the living room by the hand to greet his long lost brother.

It's like they've fallen into Bizarro world, and its unsettling Dean who was already pretty damned unsettled. He doesn't even get a thrill out of the hug Emmanuel pulls a quiet, awkward Castiel into; he knows his libido should be spinning some fantasies out of this, but he just... Can't.

This is what they're supposed to be. And he's already itching to get away from it.


	40. Chapter 40

Emmanuel and Daphne met at the lake when he was swimming and she was jogging, and she just knew he was the one the moment their eyes met.

Emmanuel and Daphne were married at his family estate by Castiel in a cozy, casual little ceremony a week after they met, and it only took a week because Emmanuel had to ask her father for her hand, and then they flew her parents in to attend. Not that they needed to do any of that, they were _mates_.

Emmanuel and Daphne do missionary work overseas on his summer breaks, and help all the underprivileged people of the world.

Emmanuel and Daphne probably adopt orphan kittens, too, and give all the local children toothbrushes on Halloween, and volunteer at the soup kitchen, and live their perfect life in their perfect house as the perfect Alpha/Omega pair.

Daphne looks at Emmanuel like the sun shines out of his ass, which would be hard for her to tell because he's busy worshiping the ground she walks on.

...Or it could be that Dean's a little bitter, and jaded. He can't be jealous of this life they have-it's the antithesis of everything he's ever wanted. But here is someone who looks and sounds exactly like his boyfriend, living the life that Cas should have. A life Dean would beat his own brains out with one of Emmanuel and Daphne's Martha Stewart Living vases if he tried to live in for a day. This is Castiel's fairytale fantasies in living color, starring the clean-cut Castiel-alternative and a woman who bears enough passing resemblance to Dean that he's starting to wonder if mates have some freaky sort of genetic specifications, or if the twins both just have a thing for green eyes and nice lips.

He wants his phone to ring, wants news from the trial even if it's bad, just because this is suffocating him. And he feels like a complete dick for it, because Cas is sitting beside him on the love seat and clearly struggling, but for different reasons.

It's sad how many ways two people who are almost completely identical, save for superficial details, can find to not look at each other. Emmanuel is holding Daphne's hand in his as they all talk, looking at her knuckles as he strokes his thumb over them again and again, rolling the wedding ring on her finger. Castiel, for his part, shoots pleading looks at Dean for help when he falters in conversation again, and they haven't even gotten past introductions for Dean and on to what they're really avoiding.

Neither Castiel nor Emmanuel can mention Jimmy by name, and be the first to reopen that old wound. Any other day, Dean would turn on the charm and try to help bail Castiel out. Right now, he wants a case of beer and a rock to climb under.

Daphne squeezes her husband's hand in hers and gives Dean a meaningful look before rising to her feet. "Why don't I get us drinks. Dean, can you come help me in the kitchen?"

Despite resenting feeling like he's being sent out 'just the girls' to fetch drinks, Dean rises to his feet with a nod, ignoring Castiel's kicked puppy face at being left. Cas needs to talk to his brother if he's going to fix this, if he's going to be able to slide back into this kind of life. So Dean claps him on the shoulder once and follows Daphne into the kitchen, where she's pulling out the ice tray from the freezer, and a container of powdered lemonade.

(Because Emmanuel and Daphne probably don't drink, either. God, Dean would kill himself living this way.)

"I'm sorry you're seeing Emmanuel like this. He's usually very outgoing." Daphne begins, her voice quiet enough that it won't carry to the living room, and Dean feels his eyebrows rise sharply at that image. He thinks they may have very different concepts of 'outgoing,' and that wasn't the impression Cas gave him of his remaining twin. "He was surprised when Castiel called. It's been a long time since he left. We don't talk about him, much, and his other brothers know it's a sore topic."

"Yeah, I'm gathering that." Obviously the happy couple hasn't been kept up-to-date on the full extent of Cas's crappy life changes, and he's pretty sure Cas wouldn't have been able to fully spit out what was going on when he called.

It doesn't matter, though. Sweet as Daphne seems to be, she doesn't miss the undercurrent of sarcasm to Dean's words, and her look at him is sharp. "Castiel disappeared when Emmanuel needed him the most, Dean. I'm glad you've brought him back, and I hope they can fix this. But after eight years, it's a lot to ask for him to move past." She takes a breath, composing her beatific expression again but somehow her defensive retort, that bite of protective anger, makes her more real than the custom-ordered Omega bride she'd seemed before. It was all creepily Stepford until that, and now that Dean's seen the flaws he needs to dig at it a little because that's just who he is. He may have been called in here to 'help,' but there's not a lot he can do. Lemonade is a one-person job. So he needles, because that he can pretty much count on as a life skill.

"Cas kept a picture of Emmanuel and Jimmy in his living room, until recently."

"Oh? And what happened recently to change that?" Daphne is barely paying attention, stirring the drink, on her high horse to defend her husband still and unswayed by the fact that as much as Emmanuel tried to forget Cas, Cas made himself remember the brother he lost, and the brother he let down. She takes the bait about 'recently,' and is prepared to run with it.

"He got arrested, charged for assault, his house broken into and his stuff ripped up, including the picture, and he was fired from his job and then evicted for trying to do the right thing by a guy he just met." Dean offers her a smile that may have more teeth than genuine cheer. "For starters. But up until all that, yeah, he kept the picture."

Saved by the bell. He holds up his vibrating phone indicatively, and points at the porch without change of expression in the face of her shocked stare. "I gotta take this. It's our criminal defense lawyer."

Seriously why the hell would people think he's the kind of date to take home to the family?

He slips past Cas and Emmanuel in the living room, and out the front door to settle onto one of the porch steps, before taking the call. "Sammy. What's the verdict?"

Sam sighs, and Dean swears it's the longest five seconds of his life. "No verdict yet. I was calling to tell you that the defense rested. The jury's out, now."

Waiting on a knock again, then. At least Crowley got his part over with in the morning instead of dragging it out the whole rest of the day. Leaning his forehead against the bannister, Dean tries to figure out if he feels any relief over that. "How bad was it?"

"I thought you didn't want to know any details." There's a gentle note to Sam's voice, a worried one, that grates at Dean and is probably all the answer he really needs.

"I don't _want_any details. But maybe I should, and hell it can't be worse than meeting the family." His lies are getting more transparent, but given the circumstances Sam doesn't call him on it this time. "Unless you're about to tell me he trotted out a few dozen of my former 'clients...'"

It's his biggest fear, what he most dreaded from taking this stand, and he's trying to make light of it. Because if you make smartassed comments about the worst case scenario, it doesn't hurt as much when everything goes to shit. Or people don't realize it hurts you.

"Three." Sam finally sighs. "And Alastair's accountant. I convinced Ellen and Jo to stay at the bar this morning, though, so they missed the worst of it. But Henriksen handled it well-he..."

"Unless he got them slapped in cuffs too, Sammy, I'm still not really not up for you singing his praises. He made a deal on the other guys already." He was wrong. The jokes didn't help. His little brother sat through three guys talking about raping him repeatedly, and him uselessly begging for it. Some bean counter got up there and gave numbers, tried to quantify just how whorish Alastair's pet whore really was. And now it's all public record. Resting the edge of his phone against his forehead for a moment, eyes closed, Dean tunes out the buzz of Sam trying to comfort him with words, gut churning and the taste of bile rising in his throat.

"I gotta go, Sammy." He croaks, interrupting whatever Sam is saying. "Just... text me when we have a verdict."

He doesn't give Sam the opportunity to respond. Sitting on the steps of suburbia, he's torn for a moment between going back inside and pretending nothing just happened while he lets Cas's family drama wash over him, and just getting in the car and driving. He needs away from his own head, from the sibilant voice whispering in his memory, telling him how he looks like a good bitch strapped to a breeding bench, how if he doesn't eat his slop out of the bowl on the floor before him, he'll still be drugged but Alastair will have to up his number of clients to satisfy his little slut's appetite, encouraging them to knot his mouth because _Dean-o_ chose a protein diet for the day. He worries at the corded choke collar around his neck whenever he can, not for freedom but because it's already so close to a noose that if he can catch it just right against the rack maybe it'll finish the job for him, because he isn't allowed hands let alone sharp tools.

"Dean? ... _Dean!"_ Cas is kneeling on the sidewalk in front of him, hands on his shoulders as Dean blinks himself slowly back to the present. Even in the warm summer sunlight he's freezing, a cold sweat on his skin, the back of his neck irritated from yanking at his shirt collar, trying desperately to breathe.

Castiel slides one hand up his shoulder to press two fingertips to his racing pulse, and Dean tries to shrug him off and fails because Castiel with a mission is frikkin' intense and determined.

"Are you okay?" Now that one definitely isn't Castiel. Emmanuel's voice doesn't have the same grave, rough undertone of Castiel, in the same way he doesn't seem to carry as many creases around his eyes, or as much weight on his shoulders as he moves. It's a strange moment to notice the difference, to know that he'll never mix the two of them up because Emmanuel's known grief but hasn't known guilt and pain the way Cas has, and that changes a person.

"Swell. 'S a nice day out."

Plus, Cas wouldn't ask such a stupid question and expect a real response.

"We'll be in momentarily." Castiel's words are a dismissal, and if Dean were his brother he'd probably make a smartassed comment about who's house it is anyway, but Cas has a way of getting what he wants. He watches his brother lead Daphne back inside like they're interlopers on a private moment, before turning worried eyes back on Dean.

"I'm fine." Dean's strangled-sounding words are ignored as the bullshit they are as Cas settles next to him on the step, an arm around his waist. Cas is breathing slowly, deeply, and without realizing it Dean finds himself patterning off of it the way he's supposed to, and it helps the encroaching darkness recede, helps ease the burn of his lungs enough that he figures he can handle this now without being babysat. "Go back to your visit."

Dismissal doesn't work as well for Dean as it did for Cas, because Cas knows he's full of shit and refuses to be dismissed. And because Cas has seen this all before, seen Dean fight his way back out of this place coming out of nightmares, and trying to dig these thoughts out of his skin when his Heat hit him. Never on a brightly lit summer morning, flanked by mesh-protected flower beds that look like they should burst into Disney-esque song, but Dean's fucked up issues are a road show again, so why not.

"I'd rather sit here with you for a minute, until you can come save me from my visit." Castiel murmurs with an air of confession, and Dean knows he's partially trying to play him, but the words are at least sincere. He finds his head resting against Cas's shoulder, guided there by Cas's hand against his back, and after a moment he gives up and allows Cas's unobtrusive care, how he catches Dean's hand and rubs circles into his palm with the pad of his thumb as if he's chasing the tingling feeling of cords tying his circulation off.

"It's not that bad. They seem... nice."

"They are exceedingly nice." Castiel agrees readily, but it's what he doesn't say that has Dean finding the motivation to brace himself against the bannister again, raising an eyebrow at Cas and waiting for an end to that thought, as Castiel stares at the Impala parked on the street and lets Dean reorient himself. "...I think it would be easier if he could just hate me for abandoning him. But he doesn't do conflict. And I don't deserve his unconditional forgiveness."

Trust Cas to just lay it all out there, the brutal truth of how he sees things boiled down to as few words as possible. Dean doesn't know what to say to that, because he knows what Cas means. After a few moments, he nudges Castiel, shoulder bumping against his. "If it makes you feel better, the missus is holding a grudge on his behalf."

Castiel's laugh is startled out of him, and even worried and tired and so guilty he can't stand himself, Cas is beautiful in the sunlight and against this backdrop... "That shouldn't make me feel better."

"Eh. Go with it." Dean advises, and he braces his hands to the step to push himself to standing, only to find Cas isn't joining him in it.

He distracted Dean again, offering his own problems up the way Dean once begged him to, even before they really knew each other, before he even knew Cas's first name. Cas knows it's a hell of a lot easier for Dean to handle other people's problems than it is for him to examine his own. It doesn't mean_Cas's_ focus has shifted, though: blue eyes intent on Dean, he cocks his head to the side in a silent question, and Dean knows what he's asking. He wants to know about Dean's mental state, about the trial, about what happened to send him back into the sex torture dungeon in his own damn head, about the tenuous state of their relationship that's turned into a yo-yo of pushing Cas away and reeling him back in, and Dean's not ready for a long talk about any of that. Besides, it's all the same answer.

"Jury's still out."

Lips setting into a grim line, Castiel stares at him a moment longer before nodding, and he lets Dean lead him back inside.

xXx

Of all the trainwreck ideas to ever be offered with a smile, the idea of finishing their trek across Illinois by going back to the family estate and having dinner with all of the family they can drum up tonight rates up there, for Castiel, with Dean cheerfully arresting himself.

It is not going to go well. Emmanuel and Daphne have to know that, had to know it when they walked back inside from the porch to Emmanuel hanging up on Michael, the arrangement made for them.

He can't tell if it is penance for his abandonment, or he's been invited into one of the inner circles of hell. On the hour drive between Champaign and Pontiac, he doesn't know if he should worry most about dinner with his brothers, or about meeting his father for the first time, or about seeing Claire and Amelia after eight years, or about how Dean won't talk to him about what triggered a full-blown panic attack (though he will carefully avoid those words in Dean's presence, aware enough of Dean's pride to know it would shut him down again).

"What're you thinking?" Dean is watching him carefully out of the corner of his eye as he drives.

"I am trying to decide if in Dante's model of hell I would fall into the first round of the Ninth Circle of Hell, with those who betray their families, in the Eighth Circle with heretics and hypocrites, or into the Seventh Circle with the wrathful and violent." Castiel pauses for a moment, brow creasing as he draws on old memories of reading the Divine Comedy. "And what Dante considered sodomists, come to think of it."

"I think we have a winner." Dean drawls, and Cas turns his head in time to see Dean's eye roll at Castiel's melancholic thought process. It was_partially_ true. His mind is churning through many thoughts, and that was the easiest one of them to put together in that moment. "I'll meet you there. It'll be a party. All the bar fights and sex."

"You wouldn't go to Hell." Castiel watches the street signs roll past as they enter a familiar neighborhood he hasn't been in for years, resting his temple against the sun-warmed glass of the window, and his complete certainty throws Dean for a moment. "Besides, what you're describing isn't hell, its _yesterday_. And I think we should probably limit the bar fights from now on."

"But not the sex?" Dean quips, because he needs to say something to break out of his own thoughts, and because Cas's train of thought unnerves him. Cas _believes_this kind of crap—he believes in Hell and Heaven and God and Dean's certain admittance into heaven. He wants another smartassed deadpan Cas comment in return, something that will give him a good distraction and veer them out of religion and into the safer territory of their sexcapades, but Castiel is in one of his contemplative moods and doesn't respond for a long time.

He's lost in thought until they're parked in front of a familiar house, his eyes roving the slightly run-down appearance of one of the few places that ever felt like home to him. Because Jimmy made it his home, offered a room to him any time he wasn't living off of the church, had him say Grace over supper with them and named him Claire's godfather. No matter how many places Castiel's lived in the intervening years, it took Dean for anywhere to feel like home after that. For his apartment to not feel empty, or for a run-down converted office over a mechanics' shop to seem welcoming.

Cas doesn't know what Dean's looking for, what it will take to convince him that he wants this relationship, but he knows this. "If you told me tomorrow that you never wanted to have sex with me again, I would honor that. And I would still want to be with you."

He doesn't give Dean time to cheapen that by throwing one of his meaningless jokes at him, designed to give him time while he processes. Sliding out of the car, Cas folds Jimmy's coat over his arm and makes his way up the familiar sidewalk toward the house, hesitating when he can see Claire through the dining room window with books spread out before her. Once he's on the first step, he spots a mop of unfamiliar brown hair he can see only from the back.

(His father's hair curls beneath his ears the way Cas's does when he needs to get it cut, and stands up in an unruly mess otherwise the way Jimmy's used to after a long day, too, the way Cas sees in the mirror every day when he doesn't feel like dunking his head under the faucet. Claire is as beautiful as her pictures over the years, the spitting image of her mother but with her father's eyes, but _his_ father is sitting in that room and he still has no idea what to say).

Claire blows her hair out of her eyes in overblown pre-teen irritation as she leans over the lesson Chuck has put together, and it puts Cas in her line of sight as she raises her head. The decision to stay or run again is taken entirely out of his hands when she bolts from the table, and he's already hugging her before he's fully processed that she's thrown the door open and then her arms around him—it doesn't matter in that moment who she thinks he is, if he's confused her life again, he just needs this assurance that he didn't screw _everything_up.

Amelia is at the door moments later, older than he remembers her and for a moment stunned by him. And then he finds himself with both Novak women hugging him, Amelia with an arm around his shoulder and Claire still hugging her arms around his stomach.

On the sidewalk, Dean quirks his lips lopsidedly, the ache in his gut dampening his joy for Cas as he watches him find what Dean feared and expected all along on this trip. His home.

xXx

For her entire life, Castiel has lived vicariously through Claire's eyes. It started early enough that she wouldn't know to remember it: a few drawings folded up and sent to him overseas, her first crude attempts to make a crayon work for her. They made him smile even in a terrible place, and his brother knew they would. So they kept coming. Even after Jimmy was gone, Amelia kept the tradition going through Claire's messy block-printed Crayola letters, on to pink paper ripped out of a journal, and then once she got old enough Claire typed the messages up herself, increasing in length and sent to him through email whenever she needed to talk.

And Castiel made himself respond each time. Even when he had nothing to say about himself (which was usual), even when he was avoiding the entire rest of his family, he would comment on her life in return and made himself be there for her without being _there_ for her. Children needed consistency, he'd read, and so Amelia was set up in his paycheck to receive an auto-draft, he grabbed greeting cards for Christmases and her birthday, and Claire remained the only person who he made the effort for. Because she had a grieving mother and no siblings of her own. Because Castiel's family scattered, and only a few even acknowledge her as part of it. Because she'd had a father just long enough to remember him, and then lost him.

Amelia sent him photographs every school year, and Castiel collected them all, his little treasure trove of proof that somewhere in the world there was something he hadn't screwed up. Of course, between him and Claire and their penpal relationship, on to him and Chuck and the general wonder that he has a father, it means there are a few generations in this house now who have no idea how to actually handle the images they've built of the ones before them, now that they're in the flesh.

Claire gets over it first. She's not a naturally talkative child, not in person, but Castiel gets immediately dragged into the house for the tour regardless, filling him in on superficial changes made over the years to the house, mostly. He doesn't have the heart to tell her that he knows this place well, and it's a good introduction for Dean who watches Cas let himself be hauled around by his arm hooked through Claire's. The room he used to have reserved for him is Chuck's study, now, and she glances down the hall to make sure they're clear, getting a surreptitious thumbs up from Dean as he keeps an eye out that earns him a shy conspirator's smile before she opens the door for Cas.

Paper is strewn everywhere, partially written manuscripts stacked haphazardly on tables, and Cas is fairly sure he can smell alcohol just with the door cracked. Dean and Castiel exchange a look, but have no time to discuss their impression of Chuck before they're faced with the man himself, the tour concluding in the living room where he sits nervously.

"Wow. You guys... Um. You really are identical, huh?"

Chuck Shurley, with the introduction of someone else into their home, seems to not know what to do with himself. He's lived with the Novaks for a couple years now, but with a new arrival he suddenly seems as if he's the one out of place in his own home. Or perhaps he's quailing under Cas's clear curiosity about him, that sends him staring too long, struggling to find the words to say, and torn between quiet horror and awe.

Because this man, with blue eyes and messy hair, long fingers and a scruffy beard, awkward in his own clothes as he raises a hand to wave at Cas without rising, is his _father._But not by his own choice. And far, far too young by the looks of him relative to the age of his children.

He was probably still a teenager when Castiel, Emmanuel and Jimmy were bought and paid for; the crèche used him as a human incubator, tampered with their genetics while they were inside him, forced him to carry them to term. All of the physical characteristics he recognizes of himself in this man were probably what made his Alpha father subject Chuck to that, selected for the blue eyes to make sure his youngest offspring carried that trait, and for the familiar straightness of his nose, the dark hair and fair skin, a human being reduced down to selling points...

"Cas..." Dean's got him by the shoulder, pushing him down into Amelia's soft couch and settling in beside him, his hand bruising in its grip on Cas's as he lowers his voice to a whisper, hauling him in closer so it doesn't carry. "Chill the fuck out."

Of all the emotions he expected to feel when seeing his father for the first time, he didn't anticipate rage.

Amelia is perceptive and sympathetic. She rests a hand on Chuck's shoulder and leans in to say something to him, some reassurance that she isn't going far, and then calls a reluctant Claire to her side, the girl dragging her feet on the way to the kitchen to make lunch, as if she realizes that all the action will be happening without her.

The words that were so hard to spit out at Emmanuel's seem to spill from him as soon as Claire is gone from the room, as if he can't quite contain them. "I'm so sorry."

For not knowing he was here. For never looking for him. For being born, maybe. Castiel is glad to be alive, but he despises the way that came about.

"It's weird." Chuck agrees, and he palms the back of his own neck awkwardly, a motion so familiar that Castiel can't stop the wet-sounding laugh that burns and tears at him, because this is some piece of him that never fit in the rest of his family. Dean squeezes his hand as if he sees it too, or to remind him that he's not dealing with this alone, and Cas is so incredibly grateful for him in this moment, as Chuck begins again. "I mean, I spend a lot of time trying not to..." Chuck shrugs uselessly, as if words are his enemies when he's not trapping them on paper. "But I hang out every day with a kid who wouldn't exist if it weren't for that place, you know...? So. Weird."

And that's the question, isn't it? How do you live every day in the aftermath of something horrible, appreciating the good things in your life while knowing you wouldn't have them without the bad, too?

None of them know, but they're all struggling to find the answer.

"You wanna help tear that place apart?" The question could have been introduced better, but it's been an ulterior motive to Dean's role in this visit the entire time.

Chuck could help Dean and Sam tear a flawed system apart. Could-but Dean's not so sure he'll be able to, now, with the spike of anxiety and fear that seems to grip him at the question, and having gotten a look at how he lives like a hermit, hidden away by his writing. Cas, for his part, seems torn between the two of them-he wants to fight for Dean, but Chuck's sudden fear has him protective, too.

"I don't... I..."

"Lunch time!" Claire's smile is bright, infectious, and her joy brings warmth back into the room as she swings herself around the corner, hanging onto the doorframe. She's the living personification of two generations of grieving-what's left of Cas's brother in the world, and a sign of what was done to Chuck-but she's completely innocent of both tragedies. "Mom went overboard. There's leftovers and coffee and stuff. I think she's using you to clean out the fridge."

"Claire!" Amelia's scolding voice reaches them from the kitchen, but Cas is already on his feet, and they haven't been here long but it's clear she's had Cas wrapped around her finger for years already.

"You are so whipped." Dean teases Cas gently, pushing himself to his feet while Chuck grabs his book and his glasses moves to pass Claire into the dining room. It was a conversation they were all going to have to chew on for a while to really process, and Chuck seems glad to escape it. Cas, for his part, lingers by Dean as if he's trying to figure out how to say something when he's interrupted.

"So, should I call you 'Uncle Dean' or something?"

Apparently their romantic tension can be perceived even by preteen girls.

"Yes." Cas answers before Dean can, immediately on the heels of Claire's question, and his uncertainty melts into stubbornness as he turns away to follow his niece out of the room. "Yes, you should. All the time. He needs to get used to it..." there's a definite challenge to that, aimed at Dean behind him, before Cas slides into his excuse. "His brother is having a baby soon."

Using kids against him. Now that's just fighting dirty. Dean's almost proud of Castiel for that.

xXx

True to Claire's word, lunch is massive; the combination of many dinners all brought out for them. Amelia seats herself where she isn't looking at Cas the entire meal, and seems a little haunted still, but despite the ghost of her dead husband in her thoughts she carries a clear affection for her brother-in-law as well.

Cas scowls at both she and Dean as talk of how well she cooks turns into discussion of how badly he does, much to Claire's delight, his failed attempts over the years in Dean's kitchen and Amelia's spurring laughter until Amelia accidentally says his name.

"Honestly, though, none of it's my recipe. The real cook around here was Jimmy..."

Suddenly Cas's mouthful of leftover chicken casserole seems harder to swallow, it's savory flavors dulled, and he forces the food down while staring at the pattern on the china plate Amelia's probably had in the cabinets since they were given as a wedding gift. What did he give them? He can't remember, and that gap feels like a betrayal, now, as he sits in Jimmy's home with the wife who watched him suffer, the father Jimmy will never meet, and the daughter Jimmy won't be able to watch grow up, forgetting pieces of his time with his brother.

"Well, Mom says I could burn water." Claire fills the silence, and for her the loss is a distant thing, just a fact of her life like her name, her age, or the color of her hair. "Guess I took after you." She pokes Castiel with the handle of her fork, and then steals the crescent roll from his plate, and like that, the moment moves on.

"Cas once melted a pot of mine, does that count?" Dean's leaned around him to grin at Claire, so natural with the girl that Cas wants to kiss him for helping move the conversation on, but he won't, because he knows things aren't entirely settled. "Forgot he'd put on water, and next thing I knew I'm coming up the stairs and there's molten metal on my stove and Cas is trying to put out a fire with a jug of milk..."

Cas objects over the peals of Claire's laughter. "That is not true. And if you'd just stayed downstairs another thirty minutes you would never have known..."

"What, that's how long it took for the metal to cool?"

No one at this table is on his side. As Cas's eyes land on his father, Chuck holds his hands up in protest. "Don't look at me. If I were cooking we'd be having powdered Mac N Cheese, Ramen and Jameson's."

"Nothing wrong with that." Dean flashes him a grin, naturally charming all of them, and he seems relaxed in his own skin for that moment.

But they're not allowed to keep that. Close as he is to Dean at the table, Cas knows as soon as Dean does that his cell phone is vibrating, and his smiles dies immediately, the change drastic. "I... Uh. I gotta take this." Dean mutters, and he rattles the china slightly as he pushes out of his chair.

Castiel folds his napkin and rises as he does, shooting them an apologetic look.

"We'll be right back." He takes the steps down the back porch two at a time to catch up with Dean as he swipes his finger over the phone screen to answer and presses the speaker button for Cas's sake, walking to the far corner of the yard where a swing set sits, unused now but well loved in it's time.

"We're here."

"Shh." It's Charlie's hushed voice, and by the echo they're also on speaker phone, a bustle of noise around her and Dean can just make out Sam's voice, his lawyer voice. "Just a sec."

The FaceTime request beeps, and Dean accepts it impatiently, unreasonably annoyed that she won't just say what's happening. And then there's color on the screen, shifting, and the phone is being held over Charlie's head to see over others, giving them a canted, off-center look at Sam outside of the courthouse, the blonde reporter in front of him.

_"...Justice for my brother, today. He's had to live with what they did to him for fifteen years, and it took them attacking him again for anyone to act. So ten years_isn't_enough-but it's a start..."_

It takes a long moment for the words to process, and by then Charlie is rattling off terms like 'aggravated sexual battery,' and 'prior offenses,' and 'determinate sentencing' too quickly to really follow, promising more news in just a bit while apologizing for needing to run, but Dean has no real response for her. Cas has him swathed in a hug, and the phone is loose in his grip, and he's trying to wrap his head around it still.

He _won._


	41. Chapter 41

Ten years. The maximum sentence.

It turns out that their biggest asset in the courtroom wasn't Henriksen, who flayed Dean's assailants and even Dean's 'clients' on the stand, or Sam who stayed in the courtroom start to finish handing Henriksen notes, or even Charlie and Ash's tag team of digging up dirt on Crowley's witnesses. The biggest boon they had in the courtroom was an impatient judge who had no time whatsoever for spoiled rich boys escaping even being charged with rape in his jurisdiction, and then trying to get away with sexual battery in his courtroom, right under his nose, as adults.

Once the jury came back, the judge could have given them two years. He could have offered the option to probation. Hell, he could have levied a fine against them. But apparently despite all his bitching about it, the way to Rufus Turner's heart was cussing on the witness stand. He took Dean's testimony as a whole to be the 'victim's impact statement' and handed down the sentence as soon as a verdict was given, in no uncertain terms. From then on out Sam and Charlie had been off running. The civil rights movement for Omegas started on the steps of a courthouse in Lawrence, Kansas, and it moved quickly after that.

Dean paces tightly in the back yard of the Novak house as information filters to him in bits and pieces from his family in Kansas. Charlie calls from Sam's phone twice as he's working, always apologetic, but Sam's worked his magic and is making the civil case against Castiel for injury disappear as he pushes forward with making Dean's attackers lives miserable in civil court, just like he promised Castiel he would when he took their case. Prison isn't enough for him; he is trying to destroy them financially, socially, and tear Crowley down with them.

He's maybe getting a little too into it, but Dean's the last person to judge.

Given that, Dean's not going to begrudge him a few handed off phone calls. But he's waiting for them all, clinging to every piece of news. Nothing has changed about his past, none of the screwed up stuff in his head has been washed away by this verdict, but he's struggling now with something he never expected. Hope is a fragile thing, and he's afraid any moment some development will crush it, and he'll be all the worse for having entertained the concept. He doesn't even want to name it, doesn't want to think about it, but the good news from Kansas continues to trickle his way slowly.

It was one thing, knowing his family backed him. It's another to know that they convinced a jury of complete strangers not to see him as just a thing, or a whore, or Alastair's broken toy. He may be afraid to hope too much, but he can't help feeling vindicated and pushing forward with their plan for change. Even here in Illinois, he's not powerless in it. He's getting as many questions as he is updates, and in a quick phonecall with Sam, who sounds breathless and exuberant, they get his emancipation paperwork filed not in California, where something like that would be expected from a bunch of liberal lawyers, but in Kansas where it all started, where it'd be more surprising, where maybe it'll mean more.

Inside, he can see Castiel seated in the living room with Chuck, a conversation that's probably slow and stilted and awkward, but from time to time Cas gestures Dean's direction out the window, fierce and proud as he entreats Chuck's help in the next case. It's thirty minutes after lunch when Claire slips out the back door, and she drops herself onto the swing near Dean's pacing track, one hand wrapped around the chain and her foot slowly dragging through the ash that has built up without someone actively blowing it away regularly from the groove once cut in the dirt by feet. Her eyes are curious as Dean stops typing out a text response to Charlie, who's asking if they want to let Crowley's two clients settle in the civil suit, and use the settlement to fund the federal suit. The swings creak, a lonely sort of sound, and Dean looks up at her.

"You're an Omega." Claire says, as if it's the first she really thought about it, and maybe she should have figured that out already before she had to get it by eavesdropping on her elders.

"That a problem?" Good job, Winchester, issue challenges to twelve year olds. But Dean knows that Jimmy and Amelia were a traditional Alpha/Beta pair like Sam and Jess, that the Novak family is (was?) religious, and he knows from Cas and from experience that their religion has some problems with him. Of course, then it strikes him that they've taken Chuck in, so clearly it's not a problem, and maybe he's a little punchy at the moment. Thankfully, she seems to have missed the tone.

"No, I'm an Omega too."

It sucks the air out of him completely. Claire says it so casually, like it doesn't spell out a crappy life for her, like that isn't one of the biggest fears Dean has about any children he might have, like those words didn't just superimpose her into Dean's nightmares and make him flinch in horror. She has no idea what that pronouncement means, not the way Dean does. Sure, it'll be different for her. Claire is a beautiful young girl, the Omega ideal, but the world is going to serve her up a shitty lot pretty damn soon if she's right. "I mean, I will be soon. Uncle Castiel didn't tell you? He knows. We've all known, as long as I can remember."

No, Castiel didn't mention it. Dean damn sure would have remembered that. Pocketing his phone, he slowly makes his way to Claire's side, settling onto the swing right next to hers. Hell, she's too big for this so Dean must look like a giant. It's too low, and the bar above them creaks threateningly at taking an adult's weight, but it feels like the right move, getting on her level instead of towering over her. "How do you know?"

"Blood tests." Claire says promptly, shrugging as she tucks honey-blonde hair behind her ear. "When Dad got sick, everyone was really worried about me, too, so they did a lot of tests. I don't remember a lot of it." Biting her lower lip between her teeth, she looks out over the yard, thinking hard, rifling through memories. "I remember Mom, Uncle Castiel, Uncle Gabriel and Michael and Lucifer getting into a fight at the hospital while Dad was there, the night Uncle Castiel got back from the Army. I think Raphael and Uncle Emmanuel were there too."

Dean doesn't miss who gets the title of 'uncle' and who's left out of it. He's pretty sure he's hearing a child's memories of the conflict that ripped her family apart, and getting a clearer picture of the battle lines than she even realizes she's giving. He can't help prompting her for more. "Yeah?"

He's pumping a kid for information on his boyfriend's family. And Cas thinks he isn't going to hell.

"Mom yelled a lot about it being their family's fault for trying to change Dad before he was born, and how it wasn't worth him getting sick . . ." Claire looks at him, so painfully young and lost, like she's afraid Dean is going to tell her that her worries are stupid. "I think. . . I think he was supposed to be an Omega, like me. But they did something to make him an Alpha, and that messed him up. Is that . . . is that possible?"

It could just be a young girl's way to feel more connected to her dead father, searching for another thing they had in common the same way she'd happily grabbed ahold of Castiel's cooking problems . . . But Dean doesn't think so. Kids hear things, they soak up information like a sponge, and she's been eavesdropping for years.

Is it possible?

It fits everything he knows about Castiel, every bitter word about his family's obsession with Alpha status, every time he tried to affirm Dean's worth as a human being, not an Omega. It means that Cas wasn't just grieving and guilty over leaving—it's survivor's guilt. If Claire's right, it was just luck of the draw before they were even out of the womb meant that the twin who didn't care about sex or gender designation and planned to remain a virgin priest anyway lived, and it was the young father among the three of them who's health fell apart because some dipshit scientist pulled a blood sample en vitro and thought Jimmy might turn out 'wrong.' It explains how much Castiel seems to hate Lucifer for calling Jimmy defective, when their family's obsession had introduced the genetic defect and chemical imbalance that eventually killed him in the first place. It explains how quickly both Castiel and Gabriel got on board with the Omega rights fight, and how personal it became for them—on behalf of this girl, the crèche-broken omega father Castiel had never met, and maybe even their brother's memory.

If they suspect that the crèche poked around with Jimmy's brain chemistry and hormones to make sure he'd conform, it explains some of the obvious focuses of Castiel's medical career.

Letting his breath out in a sigh, Dean glances in the window at Castiel where he is earnestly staring at his Omega father, a look that Dean's pretty sure even Chuck will end up caving to, and wraps his arms around the chains of the swing. He takes a moment to filter his thoughts for decency and language, for Claire's sake. "Sometimes people suck, Claire. They really. . . really suck." Turning his head, he looks back at Claire who's watching him like he's the oracle from the mountain or whatever, here to give her sage advice. "I don't know what to tell you, kid. Just. . . we're trying to make it suck a little less."

Claire nods solemnly, and for a moment she reminds him a little of Cas, and he can see her as the adult she's on her way to becoming. She's so close already, on the cusp of puberty, and it strikes him that as young as she looks, as much as he thinks of her as a kid. . . she's just a few short months younger than he was when he presented as an Omega. When those assholes raped him, then left him broken and bleeding behind a stadium.

And just like that, Dean has another reason to fight.

Claire Novak doesn't have a clue the kind of pain and discrimination being an Omega can bring.

Maybe she'll never have to.

xXx

The day has been exhausting, the ups and downs of it draining and it's still only early afternoon. Freaking out earlier took something out of Dean, wore him out, and now he's coming down from the adrenaline surge and euphoria of actually winning, and he's just wiped. He's starting to regret dragging Cas around for all this family fun time, especially when Amelia's place seems pretty okay, and Claire is an unexpected bright spot in this little journey, and he's not sure they want to move on yet. But the idea of leaving Cas behind has slowly eroded away.

Cas could do well here. It'd be good for him, maybe good for Claire even. But then what? A fresh batch of grief for the Novaks? Dean can't do that to them and he's starting to think he doesn't want to do that to him and Cas, either.

And now all that's left is the big family dinner, a dinner the Novaks and Chuck are decidedly not invited to, and Dean's starting to dread it like Cas does. Amelia quirks her lips in a faint smile at the door, and catches Cas in another one-armed hug. "You know, I saw you go to war without dragging your feet this much."

"I knew what I was actually doing, there." Cas grumbles, and he stoops to wrap himself around Claire, hugging her tightly. "I'll email you my new address soon."

"Or we could just email. You know... with the email you'll be emailing from." Cas laughs, a genuine, amused laugh that seems to transform him, and he tightens his grip around her for a moment. She's easy and comfortable around him, teasing in a way that proves she's done it in the past on paper without ever being chastised or talked down to for heckling her elders, and she tightens her fingers in the back of his shirt in a childlike reluctance to let him go.

Cas is probably the closest thing this girl has had to a father since hers died, some combination of loving uncle and long-distance best friend, and he's good at it. Then again, maybe that isn't all that surprising; no one could ever fault Cas his ability to just listen. Someday, Cas is going to make some kid a great dad; a little indulgent, terrifyingly protective when provoked, but supportive and caring even if he's forever out of touch with what's 'cool' at the time, and completely unconcerned with gender or designation or sexual preferences.

Dean tears his eyes away, and finds himself pulled into a hug as well. Amelia's quiet thanks for bringing Cas back to them makes Dean uncomfortable, but he accepts the hug from her, and moments later the one from Claire, before shaking Chuck's hand. Chuck seems a little out of place again, in this family affection, but after a moment's hesitation Cas hugs him, too. Brief, and faintly awkward, but the pat on the shoulder is the first and only parental affection Castiel has ever received in his entire life, and just how depressing is that thought? Dean and John may not have ended well, and may've been screwed up long before John cashed that damn check, but he got more than Cas ever did out of a relationship with his father. Hell, that's discounting Bobby, who Dean still expects to give Cas hell if they make it to Sioux Falls together.

Chuck seems alright. Maybe he'll get the nerve to help their fight: Cas seems to hope so, and to hope it'll mean getting to know his own father.

The Impala is too warm again from sitting in the bright sunlight for hours, and Dean idles her outside of the Novak house with the windows down to let her air out, while Cas looks at the place like he's mapping memories, and for once he doesn't have the haunted expression that Dean's come to associate with Jimmy.

"You didn't tell me Claire's an Omega."

Castiel doesn't even have the guile to pretend a look of surprise, or come up with a denial. He turns slightly, arching a brow, and watches Dean with something like irritation. "I never concealed that fact. It just never came up."

Never came up. Dean snorts and thinks of a few dozen times it could have been brought up in conversation, given since the day they met Cas has been neck deep in Omega problems.

Sighing, Castiel closes his eyes, but there's a sadness there, a regret that Dean expects must have to do with Jimmy and Claire until it doesn't. "Why is it easier for you to believe I am invested in trying to fix things for her, or for Chuck, but not for you? You matter to me, Dean. You're not my only motivation, but you . . ."

"I get it." Dean interrupts abruptly. He can't take Cas naming Dean as his primary motivation, doesn't want to face being made that important to someone. As much as he doesn't deserve that, as screwed up as some part of him thinks it'll leave Cas, he's not blind enough to miss it. "This whole damn trip… Cas, I'm an asshole." This time Cas interrupts Dean, capturing Dean's lips in a kiss and denying him the start of an apology that Cas really doesn't think he needs to give. It's sweet, uncharacteristically gentle from Cas, and feels like forgiveness. No, not forgiveness, empathy: Castiel doesn't think he has anything he needs to apologize for, and somehow that's even worse. He knows what Dean was trying to do, here. He knows Dean's been trying to find a place to foist him off into 'better' life, but he understands because Cas sees himself as a runaway and screw-up too.

And Cas isn't quite sure how to say all of that, so he doesn't try, just curls a hand around Dean's neck and lets action speak for him, because otherwise he'll just start them on another circular argument about their respective self-worth.

Knuckles rap against the frame of the car, breaking them apart, and Claire stifles a giggle as Cas jolts away from Dean like he's expecting a fight or like the Pope himself decided to show up, and stares at Claire in confusion. Dean, for his part, has to brace a hand against the back of the seat to keep from crashing forward into the sudden absence of Cas right against him. Cas blinks once, then flushes bright red at being interrupted by his niece, though all they were doing was kissing. "I. . . yes, Claire?"

Claire laughs again, bright and clear as the peal of a bell, and bites her lower lip trying a little belatedly not to smile. "Sorry. Mom wanted me to run out here before you left. You forgot your coat." And she holds Jimmy's coat out to him through the window, neatly folded by Amelia's hands and delivered by Claire. Castiel isn't sure why that has him swallowing around a lump in his throat, and he accepts it slowly—it's just an old coat that he's had possession of for eight years, that was never fashionable and is entirely unseasonable in the middle of the summer, but it means something. And whether Claire realizes that there is significance in this, he's sure Amelia must.

"Thank you."

"Bye, Uncle Castiel." With an unsubtle emphasis worthy of the Novak name, she includes Dean as well. "And Uncle Dean. . ." There's a moment of hesitation, then she offers Dean a shy smile. "You can email me too?" Then, her chore accomplished and that offer given with the air of someone afraid that she'll be rejected, she darts back off leaving both men staring after her.

"That was fighting dirty. The uncle thing."

"But it worked." Cas is unrepentant, and he rests the familiar coat on his lap, hands smoothing over the fabric. Rolling his eyes, Dean shifts them into drive and shakes his head. He wants to make a joke about it, but Cas isn't wrong.

"She's gonna be okay, Cas." It's comfort, but also a question. Castiel smiles fondly, looking out the window as they head out, watching Claire wave from the doorway and raising his hand in a farewell.

"She's a good writer. Chuck agrees with me on it. And Amelia told me that she's been putting the money into a college fund, the last few years. She'll look into women's universities once Claire is old enough."

Claire will be fine.

They'll all make sure of it.


	42. Chapter 42

The afternoon's trip is easier and, with the trial done and Castiel and Dean finally on the same page, they make a day of the two hour drive from Pontiac to Lake Forest, taking the route up through Chicago. They stop in Edgewater ostensibly so that Castiel can show Dean his old college at Loyola, but mainly so he has an excuse to get Dean a view of Lake Michigan unfolding across the horizon. Madonna della Strada Chapel on campus was a haven for him after Jimmy's death, while he was throwing himself into medical training, and it backs onto the lake. He encourages Dean to turn off the car and roll down the windows so they can linger in the breeze off the water, and can both soak in their respective ideals of tranquility: the bell tower and delicate stonework of the church for Cas, and a vast expanse of open water for Dean. He brushes aside Dean's quip about the little lake in Kansas and his grubby river not really holding a candle to Cas's views. For him, it was always about watching Dean instead of the scenery, anyway.

"I didn't think we were gonna win." Dean's voice is normal enough, so that it seems like any casual conversation starter, and Dean sits with his arms braced over the Impala's steering wheel, chin on his wrist and a coke from their cooler in the back dangling from his fingers, looking out at the sunlight dancing across the lake. Castiel has taken enough confessions in his life to know one when he hears it, though, the admission of perceived weakness and uncertainty, and he lets it go without false platitudes.

"I knew you were in the right, but I didn't know if the jury would listen." Castiel hesitates a moment, before confessing for himself. "I prayed that they would."

"Still weird, the praying thing." Dean shoots a sideways look at him, but he doesn't seem to be judging. He shrugs, then, pushing it away. Dean will learn to cope with their different views on God. He raises the coke to his lips, letting it rest there a moment, and it's as if he's speaking to the soda next. "This whole thing, the trial. . . it's still fucking with my head."

Dean hasn't been able to figure out up from down, or what to do, and he's only just now on solid ground and it still doesn't feel entirely real. It's easier not looking at Cas for this, because he _knows_ Cas is doing that thing where it's like he's trying to peer into Dean's skull just by staring hard enough. Cas doesn't respond by pointing out how obvious that's been, or by downplaying it, or by trying to make it seem like this thing-fiasco though it was-hit him nearly as hard as it did Dean. Cas just absorbs that information without pushing for more.

"I was gonna give you the choice to stay here, you know." He offers it like an escape, though he knows now what Cas is going to say.

"I had gathered that. I never had any intention of staying, though, if you were giving me the 'choice' to go with you."

Dean shakes his head, amused and relieved and. . . hell, he doesn't even know. This conversation, for as casual as it is framed, carries a lot more weight than either of them will admit to. "Stubborn bastard."

Castiel hums his agreement, folding his arm on the top of the car seat and settling in comfortably, the conversation over with his complete lack of defense to that accusation. He _is_ stubborn. And if Dean had tried to leave him for anything other than _Dean's_choice, Castiel would have dug his heels in. If Dean wanted to go, Castiel wouldn't force his company on him. But Cas knows where _he_wants to be.

The silence that falls is companionable and refreshing after days of tension, all the forced communication between them and others. There have been too many words and explanations and confessions, too much testimony and prying.

Seeing Dean go quiet and still, lulled and comforted by staring out at the water, has Cas wishing he still had money, wishing he could find some way to give Dean some small bit of this peace, a little waterfront property of their own somewhere here, or in South Dakota, or on the beach in California. He doesn't care where. Someday, if he can pull it off, that's become part of his dream; marrying Dean and raising a family together somewhere that Dean can escape to the water to think, idly fish, or to watch storms roll in.

Not yet. It's too soon, too raw, and he chastises himself for letting the daydream get too far away from him, growing more elaborate, uncomfortable with planning Dean's future out for him even in his fantasies.

He still wants that house on the water.

Probably not anywhere here, though, after all.

His family's property is lakefront, after a fashion: they own a decent stretch of the waterfront, but the house is set so far back from it that all you can see are the trees from the front, where the picture of them as children was snapped, and where he presided over Emmanuel's wedding.

"You didn't tell me you lived at the X-Mansion." Dean whistles as he squints through the windshield at the sprawling estate, and he rolls his eyes when Cas stares at him blankly, not getting the reference. "Movies. Comics. We're going to work on this."

"I'd like that." Castiel agrees, only partly because he's convinced Dean is speaking a different language than him sometimes and mostly because Dean is discussing their future, too, making plans for it however mundane, and that warms him in ways he couldn't necessarily describe even if he were inclined to.

"We're under-dressed, aren't we?"

"We are." Cas is trying not to sulk in the face of this place, as the gate rolls open for them. "It won't matter what we're wearing, though, we are here to face my brothers' disapproval. I'm tempted to dig in the trunk and steal a pair of your work jeans and a band shirt."

"You rebel."

"No, that would be Gabriel. He is the rebel. Balthazar is the lecher. Lucifer is morally depraved. Uriel . . ." there's no way he can crash-course Dean for every potential member of his family and their mates and wives and nieces and nephews who may arrive.

"Huh." Dean is frowning at him, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, and he seems as reluctant to get out of the car as Cas is. "Tips for getting through this without punching anyone?"

"Don't punch anyone." Castiel answers immediately, tonelessly, earning him a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

"Smartass. Does that apply to you, too?"

"I am going to _try_ not to punch anyone."

"Because the last time you met these guys, there was punching." It isn't a question: Dean heard the testimony and Gabriel's vague account.

"It was well deserved." And there's Cas's mask again, the stoic demeanor undercut this time by a still simmering anger, even after all these years. Emmanuel he went to both looking for and dreading his forgiveness. Amelia and Claire he approached as if he was coming home. Chuck he just needed to meet, to come to grips with in some way. Cas expects no reconciliation here, just more of the family politics that he escaped years ago. But it's too late to back out now.

Emmanuel's boring little fuel efficient car pulls up behind them, his twin circling the car to open the door for his mate, Daphne's hair pinned up and her dress prim and demure, but for some reason this time it doesn't make Dean want to tear his hair out, seeing them casually walking around as a picture-perfect pair. But he _wasn't_jealous on Cas's behalf, of how easily their lives seemed to come together. Not really. He and Cas are both screwed up, and their relationship is a little abnormal, and they don't meet anyone's ideals, and they should own that.

"I can get my own damn door." Dean warns Cas, throwing it open with the tell-tale squeak he refuses to repair because he long ago accepted, on behalf of his car, that sometimes the supposed flaws are what adds character.

"I never thought you couldn't. . .?" Castiel's confusion is genuine and endearing, like he has no idea what prompted _that_ random assertion. Dean might as well be declaring he can tie his own shoes, as far as Cas is concerned.

Emmanuel looks good, Dean has to admit, in a very tidy kind of way. Stepping up beside his brother to rest a hand on his shoulder and draw his attention, it's like he's inviting the comparisons again, and Dean's got no illusions that Cas's family will think Cas is the shabbier twin in contrast, but screw them anyway. The twins don't seem to need to decide on it, they just take off towards the door as soon as they're side-by-side; they were once two parts of a whole and it's like they can't help being a unit, though they've fallen out of sync now without Jimmy to keep them together.

"Why are we here, Emmanuel?" Whether or not Dean took him on this trip, Castiel wouldn't be _here_, at this house, if Emmanuel hadn't set this up.

"Because you can't choose your family, Castiel. And we need to fix this." Emmanuel smiles at Castiel, still a little uncertain but hopeful. "I know things ended poorly with them, but. . ."

"'Poorly.'" Dean snorts at Castiel's droll delivery as he repeats back the word, though it doesn't win him any twitch of amusement from his brother. How long has the guy had to get by without _anyone_ appreciating his grim sense of humor? Daphne certainly doesn't appreciate Dean's snort of amusement, but he flashes her a grin and shrugs as the twins carry on unaware.

"Castiel, I didn't bring you here to start a fight again..."

"I have no intention of starting any fights." The emphasis there even in Castiel's deadpan tone. Cas won't _start_ any fights, but he's not promising to play nicely. Dean's starting to think he may not be the best influence on him. The guy has moved on from the years of letting Zachariah and his ilk treat him like crap while curbing his temper, and it's pretty clear why. Okay, so maybe that's an influence Dean doesn't mind, bad or not.

With a significant look at Emmanuel, Cas dares him to argue that, hoping still that he'll hold him to his guilt. After a moment Emmanuel sighs softly and falls back, holding his arm out for Daphne to take as Dean sidles up beside Cas with his hands in his pockets and his eyebrow raised. There's not enough time for more discussion-the door swings open, and they're ushered inside.

Once, while they were tangled together in bed with Dean idly trying to pull information out of Cas about his past, Cas finally gave in by labeling his upbringing in Illinois as 'pretentious.' Now that he's inside the old family home, Dean's more likely to go with 'snooty' and maybe even 'stuffy.'

The place is massive and over the top in every way. No item of furniture they pass looks like it has ever even considered the idea of comfort being part of its function. An austere Beta with her hair drawn neatly into a bun and a trim black business suit as her uniform leads them into a room that has gold gilding on the fireplace, on the walls, and on the bulky frames around paintings of angels in battle, and celestial might. Because hell, why limit the whole angel fetish to naming all your kids after them, when you can blow millions of dollars on old paintings, too, right? And this is just one room.

Finger food and drinks are placed on a white marble table at the center of the room, appetizers before the real dinner, but there's nowhere to sit, no real function to the room outside of being ridiculously ostentatious.

"Dude, you grew up in a frikkin' museum." Dean remarks out of the corner of his mouth to Cas, but not quietly enough.

"It's not all this formal, just the main floor." Emmanuel reassures Dean, but the guy combed his hair flat and put on a suit jacket to come back to what's supposed to be the family home, and he was already pretty dressed up. That's a sign if anything is. "This is where Daphne and I were married, though."

"Joy." Dean mutters to himself, and the door is opening again as Castiel's half-brothers begin arriving. Dean's pretty sure he can ID them all based upon the one family photo of them all as kids, but he's going to get introduced anyway. After all, he's half of the side-show that brings them together today. He's coming to understand this isn't dinner, it's a _dinner party_, and god he needs a drink.

The fact of the rest of the family's arrival in the room _after_ Cas and Emmanuel are shown in, though, makes Dean uneasy. It's like they were in a holding tank, like Cas's brothers and their families were all elsewhere beforehand, talking about them and planning, and that's unsettling.

Inias is the first to reach them, the closest to the twins in age. He has a longer, narrower face than Cas and Emmanuel, his blue eyes less vibrant, but Dean's willing to bet still a sign that the Allen family patriarch had a thing for them when he started shopping Omegas. Or maybe he just paid up more cash to genetically make sure his custom-ordered kids matched that requirement. Inias's wife, a blonde Beta named Hester, looks down her nose at Dean from the first and doesn't endear herself to Castiel with it as they're introduced, Cas's explanation of Dean as his 'boyfriend' getting a faint sneer before she's bustling her husband away. Inias goes down as seemingly okay enough but gutless in Dean's book.

Daphne drifts off to follow Hester, probably to gather wherever wives are supposed to gather, and Castiel watches the blonde with his eyes narrowed until his attention is commandeered again as he's accosted into a hug with back slapping by a blond man with a glass already in his hand, and as far as Dean's concerned an accent that sounds like he fell out of a BBC Special. "Past time you showed up." Castiel blinks in surprise, but hugs him back in turn after a moment.

"Balthazar? You were supposed to be overseas."

"Oh, yes, and you were 'supposed' to return letters and phone calls. Funny how neither of us has done what we ought." There's a teasing sort of mirth in Balthazar's voice, but when he pulls back from the hug there's a warning in his eyes and his voice lowers. "Careful, Cassie."

Castiel tips his head to the side in confusion, brow furrowing and eyes narrowing in suspicion, but Balthazar doesn't give him time to completely blow whatever subtlety his warning carried. Cas still is about as subtle as a brick to the head and if anyone wondered whether Balthazar was passing notes, they weren't going to be wondering for long if he kept it up. "And I suppose this is the brother-in-law I've heard so much about."

"Boyfriend. Dean Winchester." The correction is instinctive, but Dean's mind is elsewhere as they shake hands.

Is that a warning, too, that they've been talking about him? Dean's always been a little paranoid, and this family doesn't help that, particularly not when a moment later, Lucifer steps into the room with a beautiful blonde on his arm and immediately sets eyes on Dean, lip curling faintly. It interrupts his comeback to Balthazar, who falls in next to him against the wall, crossing his feet at the ankle and taking another pull of his drink. "Wonderful seeing family get along, isn't it? I don't think I've seen Lucifer and Michael agree on anything like this in years."

Definitely a warning, then. Thankfully, Castiel is stiltedly engaging Uriel and hasn't noticed yet how his oldest brothers are there, now, waiting for their chance to apparently ambush him somehow. Dean glances at Balthazar, and nods slightly. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it. No, really _don't_mention it. I wouldn't be here if Gabriel hadn't asked me to. I get along with my family far better from the other side of the ocean." Balthazar has used up all the time he can conceivably have while pretending this is just a casual introduction. Amusingly enough, they _don't_ have any real introduction beyond that. Balthazar is there for Castiel, to have his brother's back; Dean's just incidental to that.

That works for Dean this time, though.

Uriel seems taken aback by Dean's gall as he steps right back up to Cas's side, but it's Cas who's surprised when Dean links arms with him like they're going out to the prom or trying to fit in among the filthy rich. Dean's got a plan, though, and it has nothing to do with being the Omega hanging on a rich Alpha's arm (god he needs to scrub this from his memory later) and everything to do with tugging him away and trying to get him warning beforehand.

"Stealing your brother for a minute." He apologizes to Uriel.

"I think you've stolen him for longer than that," Uriel remarks, his voice deep and judgmental and Castiel falters, brows drawing together, and stares at Uriel. There's a flash of hurt there, that Dean doesn't miss: in his accounting for how his brothers would fall, Castiel must have thought Uriel cared enough not to side against him in whatever divide is forming. If Cas is looking for allies in the family drama, though, Dean's pretty damn sure he's going to come up short. Dean barely resists the urge to flip Uriel off.

"What are you doing?" Cas finally asks Dean as he lets himself be moved away.

"We're playing along. Temporarily." Dean pauses, and turns them to block Castiel's view, locking eyes with him for a moment. There's no time. "No, that's bullshit. I'm trying to restrain both of our ability to throw a punch, no matter how 'deserved.'"

"I assume you're talking about me." Castiel jerks in Dean's grip at Lucifer's voice behind him, and would you look at that, the being sickeningly couple-y in public crap comes in handy pretty quickly. Castiel didn't think Lucifer would be here, his own squabble with Michael too long-running to ignore, but he wasn't exaggerating his urge to murder his older brother for making Dean's time with Alastair possible, and Dean's pretty sure that's a bad idea. Not because the world wouldn't be better off rid of Lucifer, but because Cas shouldn't make a habit of murdering scumbags for Dean. So being able to restrain Cas's kneejerk reaction to hearing Lucifer with him counts as a win. "I hear congratulations are in order. You managed to evade going to prison."

Around them, Castiel's family seems to be doing the reunion thing, mingling. Nine brothers, their wives and some older children makes for a decent sized crowd, but Dean's sure most of the ears in this place are turned towards them and it's creepy. He squeezes Castiel's arm, fingers pressing into him in warning, and he makes sure he's got Castiel's eyes on him. Whatever Lucifer and Michael have planned, if Castiel does something stupid he's just going to undercut himself. He waits until Castiel nods in terse and grudging acceptance before dropping his arm, and the two of them turn at once.

Lucifer is back to his tacky white suits again, as if he's compelled to stand out from the black suit jackets his brothers seem to favor, even Balthazar who threw his on negligently over a v-neck. Together, he and the blonde Omega beside him are beacons of light, signal fires among the dour attire of the rest of them, her in a virginal white dress, her shoulders bare and hair loose and flowing. It's not Lucifer's smug face, or the admittedly attractive body of the woman at his side that Dean notices, though.

It's the simple white ribbon choker adorning her neck, a single jewel dangling from it like a tag on her _collar_, symbolic of it at least. For her part, she seems proud to be there, hanging on his arm, showed off like a prize possession. Mingling around the room, the others have brought their wives. . . but Lucifer brought an Omega, and made it clear that she's a _pet,_because he knew Dean would be there.

There's no way in hell they're getting through this dinner, is there?

"Lucifer." Dean's pretty sure the temperature in the room just dropped ten degrees with the coldness of Castiel's greeting. "I assume you're here as legal counsel." Searching the room, Castiel's eyes land on Michael nearby, blue eyes locking, both of them assessing. Castiel's jaw flexes angrily as he puts his attention back on Lucifer afterwards. "Presumably about me."

Lucifer's smile widens, and it's answer enough. "We should have dinner as a family, before business."

"If you're intending to disinherit me, and any children I may have, I'd prefer we get it out of the way now." Cas's voice carries for its intensity though he hasn't raised it at all, reverberating through the room.

Lucifer doesn't get the chance to give whatever snide answer is on his lips and push this into a fight. Fashionably late as he pushes the double doors into the room open without waiting to be let in, Gabriel is probably the only person in the room less dressed for the occasion than Dean and Castiel. A Hawaiian shirt beneath a linen jacket, he grins as eyes turn towards him, reveling in being the temporary surprise guest and center of attention, the original run-away from their family, in whose footsteps Castiel later tread. "Sorry I'm a few years late. Got caught in traffic."

Nearest to the door, it's Michael who voices the opinion of Gabriel's 'audience,' disapproving and paternal, though there are only a few years between them. "Are the theatrics necessary?"

"Yeah, well, you know me Mikey. Couldn't ever resist an entrance line." He winks cheekily at his eldest brother, pops Raphael on the arm as he cruises past him, and beelines for Dean and Castiel, slinging an arm around them just as much for show-a small, irritating, and completely welcome pain in the ass as far as Dean is concerned. "There you two crazy kids are. Feels like just yesterday I saw you. Or day before. How's things? Congrats on the court thing, couldn't happen to more deserving assholes. Well, maybe it could." As if he's just noticing Lucifer for the first time, he raises his head and flashes his elder brother a grin without moving away from Cas and Dean. "Oh, hey bro!"

"Gabriel. This is unexpected," Lucifer seems surprised and a bit taken aback, and undeniably wary. Gabriel is more of a loose cannon than Castiel—Castiel is hot-headed, but steady in his way. Gabriel you can't predict, and he _was_ the one to throw the first punch last time, even if it nearly had him hospitalized for it. Gabriel, Dean and Cas together on one side of a tense situation is a recipe for disaster.

"I love reunions." Gabriel's grin is somehow hard edges and threatening and yet completely cheerful, his words are obviously a complete lie and meant to be seen as such. His eyes slide away from his brother to his brother's companion, gaze following the ribbon around her neck before he offers her a lecherous wink. "Lilith, still letting this asshole lead you around by the neck, huh? When're you going to ditch the leash and join the party?"

"Gabriel." Michael has joined them, and Dean spares the guy a once-over. Michael Allen is the clean-cut, strong-jawed, portrait of what their father was apparently trying to recreate with the triplets. Where Emmanuel and Castiel are mirrors of each other, Lucifer and Michael-the only other two full siblings in a room full of half-siblings-are opposites in many ways. Funny, then, how Dean's pretty sure he hates both of them. "This is neither the time nor place for this behavior."

"It's a party, Mike. And a reunion with Cassie here, right? And hell, I've been hanging out with these two the past few days. . ." He squeezes Dean and Castiel "And figured I'd check back in on them before they left town again . . ." He turns his head, catching Dean's eye, and flashes him another completely false grin. "Speaking of catching up, brotherly affection, and welcoming you to the family… you got the present Lucy sent this morning, right? Some accountant. . ."

Alastair's accountant. Lucifer provided that witness for Crowley. He probably even drummed up clients of Alastair's so well protected legally that they were willing to testify. _Lucifer_ made that happen, orchestrating the attempt to discredit Dean entirely all without lifting a finger himself. On the failure of that plan, he came _here_, and tore the rug out from under Dean and Castiel with Cas's family. His need to preserve his interpretation of their father's desires for the pride of the family, or spite, or just pure maliciousness. . .

Gabriel broke into Lucifer's files, giving Charlie and Ash the backdoor access they needed to his digital records, and probably stole physical copies for himself. Him breaking the law and turning on his family probably made their court victory possible, information filtering from Lucifer's files to Charlie to Sam to Henriksen's cross-examination. Gabe got wind of whatever 'business' Lucifer and Michael have involving Cas tonight, and sent Balthazar to warn them until he could show up himself.

Castiel's rapidly put all that information together for himself, and he beats Dean to the conclusion by moments, everything snapping into place. His head turns towards Lucifer again, the rest of him eerily still, and in the general silence of a room where no one is pretending _not_to be watching any more his accusation carries. "You son of a bitch."

(Yeah, Dean's definitely had an influence on Cas.)

Lucifer doesn't even bother denying it. Hell, he probably thinks he's done nothing wrong. After all, it's all for the good of the _family_.

"Castiel, have dinner with us and we will sit down afterwards and discuss. . ."

"Pretty sure he has nothing he wants to 'discuss' with you, man." And there goes that mouthy Omega again, speaking for his Alpha, and ain't that just a shock to Michael who stares at Dean like he issued a challenge. They're through here. The longer they stay, the more trouble Cas is going to get himself into. Dean's pretty sure at this point if Cas threw a punch, they'd be in jail again. If Cas signs anything here, they're up a creek. This entire dinner party is just fancy trimming on an ambush, even if most of the participants aren't _entirely_ aware of it.

"Guess we're not staying for dinner." Gabriel mourns dramatically, and he bends backwards to look past Dean and Cas across the room. "Hey, Balthazar. Grab a couple bottles to go, wouldja?"

"Red, white, or hard liquor?" Balthazar seems entirely unaffected by the unfolding drama, looking over the available unopened drinks on the table in the center of the room as if he's trying to decide what vintage goes best with a walk-out.

"Castiel. . ."

For all the non-confrontational vibe he puts off, it's Emmanuel who approaches Cas first, flanking Cas on his other side, a hand on his shoulder, turned to look at his brother and putting himself between Cas and his eldest brothers. Maybe he's supposed to be peacekeeper, rein his twin in. Maybe he's there to give his support. Whatever his purpose, Castiel's attention is drawn away.

"We can't 'choose our family.' You said that." Castiel's gaze settles on his twin, and he shakes his head as if he's brushing that idea away at last. "We do it all the time, Emmanuel. _They_ do it all the time. If we cannot choose our family, then why isn't Claire here? Why isn't our father? Why was_Jimmy's_ family not provided for? Why do you and the others live in fear of being shunned by this family, if we _can't choose our family_?" Raising his chin, Castiel spears Michael with a look, then Lucifer.

They choose to cull undesirable elements. They excised Jimmy's line from the family as faulty, drove Gabriel and Balthazar to run away rather than have to take part in their fights, tried to sabotage Castiel's relationship with Dean to keep their family from 'embarrassment,' and the rest of his siblings live in fear of being cut off from power and wealth and favor, abasing themselves to retain their status.

Castiel's done with it.

"Whatever 'business' you have for me, send it to my lawyer." Who they'll keep paying for out of Castiel's trust fund until it runs dry, if he has any say so, just for the bitter satisfaction of using their own money against them.

If their plan here tonight is to force him to choose between his family and Dean, there is no choice to make.

Dean watches the rest of the room as Cas marches out, trying to gauge expressions—Gabriel's half-assed salute to Lucifer and Michael seems suspiciously like a middle finger, and Balthazar drifts towards the exit, handing off a bottle to Gabe (he actually _did_ steal drinks for them; Dean's pretty sure he may accidentally start liking another of Cas's brothers if this keeps up). Emmanuel is staring after Castiel like he's being torn apart, but Daphne takes his arm and he turns toward her instead.

Nobody else goes after him. Not yet, at least.

Castiel has Dean now, though, and through him Dean's family. A motley little crew of people too stubborn to give each other up, brought together by mutual respect and love, that clashes and bickers but backs each other in a clinch.

He'll be damned if Cas comes to regret choosing that.

xXx

Dinner turns into a lively affair after all. They end up at a steakhouse not far from the family estate that would be way out of Dean's price range if Gabriel hadn't ostentatiously dropped his credit card on the table and gleefully reminded them as one of the four oldest brothers he has a direct line to the family money.

They drink and eat their fill, after that. Gabriel's a funny drunk, Balthazar enjoys egging him on, and both of them and Dean are practically feeding Castiel shots by the end of the night in an attempt to get him to lighten up. Castiel's loosened up from melancholy into his usual handsy affectionate drunken self by the end of the evening, and they part ways with Balthazar and Gabriel as they cab together to the airport hotel they're staying at, ready to run again.

Dean has to peel Cas off him and into the Impala, tucking their leftovers onto the floorboard, and he drives to the sound of Castiel snoring softly. Campgrounds are cheaper than hotels but safer than pulling onto the shoulder and napping, and they'll need a shower in the morning, so Dean drops twenty on a permit and cruises them into a spot on the shoreline. They don't have a tent, but it won't be the first time Dean's slept in his car.

He perches on the hood to watch the water with one of the stolen bottles of alcohol, and he's not surprised when Castiel joins him after a while, shoulder to shoulder on the cooling metal hood of the Impala, and they pass the drink between them.

"What do I do now?" Castiel asks, apropos of nothing, quiet and faintly lost. When he was fired, he asked the same question of God; now he turns it to Dean, looking for answers as he always seems to. Castiel is ready to fight, ready to turn his back on everything, ready to do what he must for a cause, but he wants direction and he needs something to anchor him so that he doesn't lose himself again. He thought he had Dean, and the next courtroom battle to plan for, but after everything he's still not sure where they stand, and he's drunk enough now that he's unable to hide that uncertainty.

Now it's time to do what Dean should have done in the first place, instead of this ill-conceived attempt to get Cas to dump him. Taking a swig, Dean swallows it down with the last of his fears.

"Now we go home."

Both of them, together.


	43. Chapter 43

He's so damn close he can almost taste it, now. The thrill of a job well done just out of reach, and he knows if he can just push a little harder he can mark down another win for himself. It's enough to ignore the creeping discomfort, if he can just get a grip on . . .

"Don't you got a husband to get back to or something, boy?"

The answer is instinctive, barely a thought given to the dismissal—his head's in the game.

"Boyfriend. And he's out crusading." The flat of a hand whacking the back of his head takes Dean out of the moment, ruining his easy symbiosis with the car, and he glares at Bobby as he pulls himself out from under the hood of his new favorite project.

The car is beautiful. A candy apple red 1968 Ford Mustang GT fastback, with a 390 cubic-inch V-8 engine and four-speed manual transmission. When she came to Dean she was a hunk of rusting metal. He's nursed her back to health, acid treated the rust, welded in metal plates to deal with the rusted-through panels, sanded, primed and painted her, and he's nearly finished the overhaul of her engine . . . and if he leaves now, someone else is going to finish putting in the parts he just got in for her, and he's not going to be able to see her go home.

"Jesus, Bobby, I'm almost done. I can do this."

"It ain't a question of if you can fix the car, if I didn't think you could fix a damn car I wouldn't let you work here. It may have escaped your notice, but it's the middle of January and you're sweating like the garage is a goddamn sauna. I think Benny's talking about standing out in the snow and taking a shower with the hose so Andrea doesn't carve him a new one, smelling you on him. You're a stubborn pain in the ass, Dean, but I've never seen you cut it this close."

Which is. . . well, yeah. That's true. Of course, back then Dean was still hiding who he was, or he thought he was. A few days after settling Cas in with him in Sioux Falls, he'd defiantly outed himself to the rest of the garage: Benny shrugged and said he'd known for years, and Garth. . . well, Garth tried to hug him for feeling comfortable enough with them to be honest finally. It was a little creepy. Now, though, he doesn't have to be quite so careful. He's got a long weekend planned, if he can just finish out the day. . .

Damnit, it's _his_project, he should be allowed to see it through.

"Stop being pigheaded. Go home. Call your 'boyfriend,' and tell him to get his ass back to the house." the title trips off Bobby's tongue in his faintly mocking acidic tones, earning him a scowl that he summarily ignores because Dean's never scared him any, and because nobody is quite as surly about seemingly not appreciating finding your mate than someone who lost theirs, and because for some reason he's decided he likes Cas. Probably because Cas practically petted his bookshelves, when they were introduced, or because he got his fill of gossip about the two of them from Ellen long before they showed up. "Enjoy your weekend. Spare all of us the details. And if you're going to sulk about the damn car I'll call up the customer and tell her it'll be early next week, _before_ you head on out to California. Which is what _you'd_ have done if you were thinking straight right now."

Dean's _not_ exactly thinking straight, but that's not the point. The point is Bobby's not supposed to mention it. Years he's helped hide Dean, at Dean's request, and now he's going to give Dean hell for being out when he's about to go into Heat. Or in the first stages of it. He's not exactly sure. He _is_ sweat-slick beneath his coveralls, pulse a little fast for himself, but he was _distracted_ until Bobby interfered. (Bobby may be right but Dean's not going to tell him. . . which also makes Bobby right about the stubborn thing. Damnit. Dean's just being prickly and irritable and overly defensive again, and if he kicks up a fuss Bobby's going to point it out.)

In the end, Dean lets himself be chased out of work after all, because he's probably getting to the point where he's not the only person distracted, and Benny's a friend and that's all sorts of things he doesn't want to think about, effecting his Alpha coworker and friend that way.

Just six months past, Dean wouldn't have let anyone near him the whole day before his Heat hit. It still makes the back of his neck itch like he's being watched, once he's out of the safety of Bobby's place, but there's no one in the back seat and he's fine. He makes his way carefully through streets of ash-gray snow and black ice, and he makes it into the garage of the house, the door closing behind him, before he climbs back out of the car. He weaves through the boxes, in through the kitchen just to confirm what he already knows: of course Cas's pedestrian and public transportation riding self isn't back yet. If he'd just let Dean get him a car he'd be back by now. As it stands, Dean doesn't even have a distraction.

He's _not_ going to call Cas, though. What the hell's he supposed to do, teleport back to the house? Calling him won't make him show up any faster. Turning the phone in his hands, he seeks out another distraction instead, speaking as soon as the phone picks up.

"So, do I have a nephew yet?"

"Dean." Jess laughs, faintly rueful, and Dean lets himself stop pacing, leaning against the kitchen is good. Distracting. Sam and Jess are good people, and with her ready to pop they're both home more often than not, now, so he's not interrupting anything. "I promise you, as soon as I go into labor I'll have Sam call."

"If you can hold on another couple weeks, the kid can have a damn fine birthday. Speaking from experience. . ." He lifts the lid on the crockpot stew that is probably going to end up lasting them a few days, and dumps a bit more pepper in, barely aware of the movement.

"If I am still pregnant in two weeks I am going to find you and hurt you for bribing this kid just to win a bet, and then I'm going to bill you for fitting my wedding dress." Jess threatens him, and he can hear her moving, hear Sam's voice near her. "It's for you, hon. . ." Jess hands the phone off with a bit more good-natured teasing, and suddenly he's got Sam on the line with him.

"How'd Cas's thing go? Is everything okay?"

"No clue. He's not back yet from meeting the pope or whatever it is he's up to." Dean and Sam may be the point men for their own legal crusade, but even after a few months the religious aspect is still a mystery to both of them. He knows that Cas was up before him, today, to take a bus to the Cathedral of St. Joseph, where the folks from the Vatican are there to take his statement about why he wants out of his vows (probably something to do with ignoring them for over half a year now and shacking up with an Omega; just a guess) and his exit-interview for Roman Catholicism or something, which may or may not involve Cas furiously throwing accusations of bigotry at them.

Dean has no clue. He just knows Cas isn't _here_ right now, and that's not what he wants to focus on.

Something must have bled through in his voice, or Sam is just a terrifying mind-reader, because his voice softens and he moves, presumably away from Jess. "Are _you_ okay?"

Damnit, how often does he need to tell everyone to stop worrying about him before they listen? Dean's _fine._The court thing, it's distant right now—the Emancipation coming through two months ago had really been the high point. The Impala is finally in his name now. The water and electric bills are in his name. Half the mortgage on this place is in _his name_. He testified once more for a circuit court, toughing it out for Kevin and Chuck to follow his example, and he got hunted down for a television interview on their behalf that he sweated bullets through, but for the next month or so they're settled so Sam can have the kid and finally get hitched.

It's not all sunshine and roses. Not everyone took the news about his designation as easily as Bobby's place did. But the good's outweighing the bad right now.

"Antsy. Nothing you want to hear about, Sammy, promise." Dean draws the curtains on the kitchen windows, because he knows it'll bother him later, and then starts making the rounds to close the shades. Too hot, too many potential entrances, and maybe it's bothering him _now_. He's shedding the coveralls like a snake sheds its skin—too restrictive, it itches and sits wrong on him.

"Dean, I'm here for you. Anything you need, man." He doesn't understand Dean's cough of laughter, sudden and definitely at his expense. Sam of the big puppy eyes really, really not getting what's going on here, trying to make Dean feel better when he doesn't need it, is kind of hilarious right now.

"Dude, trust me. Not something you can help me with, and I _really_ don't need that image right now. Talk nerdy to me, dude. Legalese me. Let me know what's going on with Charlie's Omega Dragnet or something. Tell me about . . ." No, he doesn't want to hear about the next breeding farm on the list to be taken down. Strapped down, forced, Omegas. . . he can't think about that right now. He's doing _better_ now, he doesn't want that in his head. Drawing a deep breath, he redirects abruptly to happier thoughts. "How goes baby planning? You get the nursery done? What's going on with the wedding?"

"Are you. . . drunk?"

Dean pauses his pacing to thump his head against the door into the bathroom, closing his eyes. "This was not my best idea." Dean laughs again, palming the back of his neck, phone pressed to his ear. "I'm fine, Sammy. I'll be fine soon as Cas gets home. I was just looking for a distraction and this is not working." He pauses, hoping the significance there sinks in so Sam doesn't sit around worrying about him, but they might as well be speaking different languages with how much the message is just flying right past Sam. "I'll give Cas a call, see where he's at. You might want to consider this the Do Not Disturb for a couple days."

"Oh. . . Oh!" There he goes. A light bulb had to flick on in that big brain of his sometime. Dean's Heats are _not something they talk about_ because that's just all kinds of awkward with your brother. "I'll text you if Jess goes into labor, okay?"

"You'll _call_ me if Jess goes into labor." He is not missing his nephew being born.

"I am not calling you _during_ again." Oh, yeah. He forgot how much that scarred Sam, when Dean called him during sex before the first trial. He smirks again reflexively, still proud of that revenge.

"You're already on the phone with me _during,_you prude." He _is_ in Heat, he can feel it tugging at him, the bite of an ache and need. Goddamnit where is Cas? Screw the Catholic Church and all that stupid politicking, he should be _here_.

"Oh God, don't tell me that." Sam is giving the verbal equivalent of flailing, and that at least is hilarious.

"Yeah yeah. Tell the kid to hold on til my birthday. I'll call you in a couple days."

He disconnects on Sam and dives into the bathroom, dunking his head under a cold tap for a second. It's not what he needs. But what he needs is annoyingly absent, and he doesn't have a clue which of the boxes has the abandoned toys that got him through his heats before Cas. He doesn't want _them_, though. What's the point of having an Alpha if he's not around for this?

(That's not true. Cas is great to have around. He still can't cook for shit, but Dean isn't lonely any more. He _likes_ this shared life, even if he ignored the sex—not that he wants to ignore the sex—but right now he's horny as hell and it's getting worse. He kicks his boxers off and flops onto the bed, a flushed and freckled starfish beneath the ceiling fan he flicks on, and he should be _freezing_ right now . . . there's snow on the windowsills behind the curtains, and no fire going, and the covers are still pooled on the floor from this morning. . .but he's fever-hot and irritated.)

The phone rings twice before Cas picks up. "Hello, Dean."

Always the same. So damned formal.

"Cas. . ."

"It's through." Castiel sighs, whether relief or exhaustion, Dean can't tell. "As of today I am officially released from all vows and obligations to the Catholic church. I don't know how much the Cardinal is going to relate back to the Vatican, but they knew of your civil rights work . . ."

When did Cas get so damned chatty? He's got a nice voice, and Dean can feel himself reacting to it, the rolling cadences of his words. Almost without thinking about it, Dean coils a hand loosely around his cock, slow strokes as he makes himself picture the way Cas shapes his words, pink lips forming letters, the flick of his tongue, how they'd feel against his skin instead.

"What're you wearing?"

There Cas goes inconveniently clamming up already, and Dean can almost hear his mind turning this over, suddenly forming conclusions.

"You're in Heat." See, Cas knows the score right away. Smart man, Castiel. "It's not time yet."

"Dude, it doesn't _work_ that way. There's not a friggin' timer. . ." Does he have to explain this every time? If he could plan this crap, figure it out down to the hour, doesn't Cas think he'd know too? It's not Dean's fault Cas took the extra day off from the clinic and then went to play with the damn church. Dean tilts his head to tuck the phone against his ear, held in place between the pillow and his shoulder, and uses his freed hand to slide down slowly. God, he's so slick already, and he can _smell_ Cas in the room, in the pillows and blankets and the walls themselves, he swears. This is their place, and if he closes his eyes he can imagine its Cas's fingers. Not satisfying, just a tease. When did Cas become a tease? Has he said that before? "Suit and tie? Give me something to work with here, Cas."

"Dean, I'm on the bus. We're two stops away from. . ."

"That's nice. I'm naked on our bed fucking myself on my fingers trying to picture stripping you out of whatever the hell you're wearing, so throw me a frikkin' bone, here." He can hear Castiel's sudden intake of breath, his thick swallow, and he knows those sounds. He likes surprising them out of Cas, reminding Cas that regardless of who's Alpha, Dean's capable of taking what he wants.

"I am going to be arrested for public indecency." Dean opens his eyes just to roll them. _One time_ being arrested, and Cas is afraid of it for every little thing now. No, this is like the goddamn stolen breakfast; why is it only the minor infractions that Cas fears?

"I know the local sheriff." He's going to get a crick in his neck holding the phone this way. He raises the hand around his cock to the phone, fumbling it briefly to put it on speaker, and his fingers catch just right for a moment accidentally, pulling at his rim, not quite the stretch he wants but closer, and he groans. He can hear the answering hiss of air from Castiel, knows he heard it, knows even from here he's having an effect with just his words, and god that feels powerful, which is still new to Dean when he's like this, at his most helpless (vulnerable not helpless, the voice in his head corrects, and it sounds a lot like Castiel).

"I'm in a clergy shirt and slacks, Dean. I dug it out of the boxes for this. . . I thought it would help me make the right impression with the Cardinal, and technically in his eyes I was still a priest until today . . ."

Clergy?

Oh _shit_, Cas is dressed up like the priest he was before he knew Dean, on a public bus being phone sexed, and that's ridiculously fucking hot. Or hot despite being ridiculous. He's probably bright red, shifting in his seat and aware of all eyes on him, prim little fuckable Father Castiel for the very last time, and Dean _missed_ it this morning. He's been in town wearing _that_ all day, pressed black shirt with just a peep of white at the collar, and Castiel should warn a guy before introducing random new kinks into his life. His hand speeds up, fingers scisorring as he tries to get the right stretch, and he can feel his toes curling. Yeah, that's good.

He's stopped imagining stripping Castiel out of his clothes, and started picturing unfastening him just enough to get what he needs, or pushing Cas to his knees and putting his mouth to good use (_not enough)_just to see Cas in that damn priest outfit looking up at him like he's praying as he swallows Dean down (_he doesn't want to beg, he hates having to beg)_.

He's pretty sure he just moaned, potentially whimpered, and may have said some of that out loud. Any other time he might be embarrassed about that, but Cas is either off the bus and walking fast, or he's _really_into the sounds Dean makes. Probably both.

"What are you doing?" That's Castiel's bossier sex voice, dark and commanding and rough, demanding an answer out of Dean. Kinky son of a bitch, he _is_ getting off on this. But it helps, Cas's voice is a link that keeps him from feeling like this isn't going to end, from being _afraid_. Maybe Cas knows that. It sounds like something Cas would know, something he'd have figured out in months of being there for Dean. This is the first time since they've met that he hasn't just _been there_. "Get up. On your knees, Dean."

God, that's a good voice. That's the kind of voice that comes with just the right amount of hair pulling, teeth dragging over Dean's skin, manhandling. Right now he has absolutely no reason to ignore the fact that there's a big part of his libido that gets off on that aggression and making Castiel lose his tight grip on it.

"Keep talking."

"I was planning to." Cas grumbles, as if he's annoyed Dean thinks he needs to be told. "I'm almost home, Dean." Cas's voice is gentle now, and that's not what Dean was looking for. He's in their house, safe, and he's not a goddamn child needing reassurance.

"You put me on my knees for a reason, Cas, or you just want the view when you get here?" Dean's got this. He's fine. Just more people stupidly worrying about him when they shouldn't. "Tell me what you want, Cas."

Because that's safer. If Dean starts talking about what he wants, that's begging, needy, and he doesn't want that. But he could stand to hear Cas that way right now.

"You."

"...Yeah, I got that you frikkin' sap." It's hard to get pissed at Cas when he does shit like this, and means it honestly. Even if it means he sucks at phone sex. "Talk."

"Lean forward. I want to know how wet you are, Dean. Use your fingers." God, he really hopes Cas is off the bus now, because there's no way he passing this off as anything but lust. Closing his eyes again, Dean lets his focus slip, Cas's voice and instructions washing over him.

"I want you stretched for my knot, Dean..." Yes, that's what he wants, Cas to fill up the empty spaces. It's a hazy sort of thought, not just about the sex, but maybe that's just them now, a tangled up mess of interlocking lives.

Dean has his face in Cas's pillow, breathing in harsh puffs of air, lower lip caught between his teeth because he doesn't trust himself to talk now, and fingers just aren't going to do the trick.

He distantly hears the door bang shut and lock, and Cas's voice in stereo as he stands in their bedroom doorway, eyes fixed on Dean, and Dean doesn't even have to get a good look at him to know how turned on Cas is by what he's seeing. "I'm here now."

"Yeah, I can see that. Hang up the goddamn phone." Cas is gorgeous, hair completely a mess from the trot from the bus stop, blue eyes bright, cheeks ruddy from arousal and the stinging South Dakota cold, chapped lips bitten and worried between his teeth while he was in public. His stupid little man-purse satchel carry bag whatever the hell it is hits the floor, and his coat and gloves and even his phone after that, and Dean pushes himself up again completely, up on the bed against all his instincts to present, because damn he was right about this outfit.

The unrelieved black is a really good look on Cas, trim lines of the neatly tucked shirt and slacks drawing attention to how broad his shoulders are, tapering down to a trim waist and the legs and ass of a long-distance runner. He wants Cas, and that's the driving instinct right now, but his eyes are caught by the starched white collar.

A _collar_.

He never really considered it before, and in this state of mind he's not really thinking clearly anyway, but Dean's sudden anger and barked order takes Cas aback, halting his approach.

"Come here." Dean's kneeling on the edge of the bed, now, demanding and furious, and he ignores Cas's look of confusion to yank the collar off of him. It's a thick plastic thing, fitting together in the back to present a seamless look, a white fabric tab all that shows with the shirt. Dean feels better once he's thrown it across the room, to land somewhere among their boxes. And then the starched straight black collar of the shirt bothers him, so he yanks that off Cas too and lets the clothes fall to the floor. Skin. Skin is much better. The black looked too much like Cas's stuffy family gatherings, anyway.

They don't _own_him. Not the church, not his family. Cas is free to do whatever the hell he wants.

"They fucking _collared_ you, Cas." Dean doesn't understand the dawning look of wonder on Cas's face at Dean growling out the explanation of his anger, but he's on board with being pushed down onto the pillows, getting them on track finally. Cas strips the rest of the way on his own quickly after that, and then Dean has him; trapped with lips and legs and a hand in his hair and fucking _finally_(later he'll be able to laugh at his own pun) Cas sinks into him with a soft sigh like he's home.

He knows better than to make Dean wait at the start, and being away and listening to Dean struggling with that first unrelieved heat had to make him frantic, but even now somehow Cas manages to turn the first desperate fumbling fuck into making love. Arms slide under Dean's back, keeping him impossibly close, cherished and safe, and then Cas gets his hands on Dean's shoulders and pulls down as he fucks in, hard enough that Dean gasps into the kiss.

It's a rough pace, Cas's hips snapping bruising-hard because he knows that's what Dean needs this first time, needs a knot _right now_, but the arms around him cradle him close, and the friction of sweat slick skin and pressure and movement around Dean's cock trapped between them has him coming in an embarrassingly short time. By the time Cas's knot catches, tying them together, Dean's loose-limbed and pliable, drifting and relaxed enough that Cas's lips and hands and sex-wrecked voice are soothing, welcome, like he's floating in them.

Cas grinds his knot deeper, pressed hard against Dean's prostate as he spills into Dean again, and that feels good, so good, Dean's hips tipping up against the weight holding him down, seeking more unconsciously, and Cas nuzzles into his neck and stifles a deep groan against his skin. Dean's hand remembers it's connected to the rest of him and pets down Cas's back, fingers tripping over vertebra, sweeping over skin.

"Hi." Dean still sounds a little endorphin-drunk stupid, but he's okay with that right now, signaling that he's mostly capable of coherent conversation.

Cas hmms softly, mouthing at the hinge of Dean's jaw lazily, and then remembers he's supposed to respond when addressed. "Hello."

Cas is such a frikkin' dork. Dean hitches his leg higher around Cas's back, tightening around him enough to tease out another strangled moan from the Alpha, and that's nice enough that Dean can't help a soft chortle of amusement. It's another few moments before Cas finds his voice again, fond and wry and deep. "I am willing to concede you may have been right about me needing a car."

The chortle turns into a guffaw, despite himself. Oh, god, they're pathetic. "Gee, y'think, Cas?"

Cas hums again, nuzzling into Dean's shoulder, as though three days of sex or not ahead of them he's afraid he won't get enough time to frikkin' snuggle. "There was an elderly woman on the bus with me. When it became clear that I was... _very_ aroused, she became visibly upset..."

Dean's outright laughing now, and he can't seem to stop despite the fact that Cas unconsciously bites into his shoulder, fingers pressing hard into his skin at the sensation of Dean laughing as they're knotted.

"The story is not that funny, Dean." Cas protests, breathless, and then he folds his arms across Dean's chest and eyes him as peevishly as he's able, given the satisfied look on his face. As if he's searching for some way to redeem himself from being laughed at, he diverts the topic. "It's freezing in here. Can you reach the blankets? ... Dean, _what_ is so funny?"

They're so fucking domestic now, no wonder Bobby thinks he's being funny when he calls Cas Dean's husband.

So Dean kisses him because he can't explain that. Because the cardinal rule of happiness is not to talk about it, so you don't jinx it, and because Cas is sulking now, convinced he's the butt of a joke. Then he kisses Cas because Cas is just good to kiss, because they're both strung out on oxytocin and dopamine and the rightness of this, because Dean is warm, satisfyingly stretched full, and reveling in wringing breathless noises out of Cas, because Cas is a sap and unapologetically in love with him, because they're settled into this little house with it's three bedrooms pretending until they're ready that neither of them have plans for those empty rooms that involve a lot more moments like this to get there.

They'll talk about the church thing later, maybe, or wait a couple of days until Dean can try and wrap his head around the intricacies of the church politics. They'll eat stew, unpack a few more boxes, and inevitably be distracted into sex on couches and chairs that seem to have sprouted throw pillows like mushrooms over the last couple months because Cas nests, whether he wants to admit it or not. They'll spend the next three days indolently tangled in each other, soaking in each touch because they can and there's no one here to judge.

After a bit Dean drops an arm off the edge of the bed to try and grab the covers, knowing it's useless in their plans today but happy to wedge his knees against Cas's hips and roll them, pulling the blankets on over them as he does, a warm cocoon... and it's just them there.

No ghosts or memories allowed.


	44. Chapter 44

_"__Complications."_

No single word has caused Dean Winchester as much dread as hearing Sam stuttering over those syllables. Standing next to his project coupe in the middle of Bobby's garage with a finger plugged into his ear and the phone crammed against the other, he's trying to hear past his baby brother being _afraid_. Terrified, really. Everything happens quickly after that, a text shot off to Cas and then Dean barging into Bobby's office, rattling out an apology.

He _just_ got back after his Heat. He's been in and out of work, the least reliable fucking mechanic in the world because of arrests and court cases and testimony and civil rights causes and Heats and general uselessness, and now he can't stay because there's no way in hell he's letting Sam stay alone and afraid in a hospital in California pacing the halls worrying about his fiancée and his baby.

"That's a thirty hour drive, boy, even if you didn't have to stop and sleep sometimes. You're better off sucking it up and just flying." Bobby's not really listening to Dean at this point, interrupting his apology, brow creased beneath the brim of his cap as he pushes himself to his feet and punches in the code to the safe, pulling out the cash for Dean's next paycheck, because he's always had to pay Dean under the table anyway. "Leave the spare set of keys. I'll take the Impala down in 'bout a week. I was going to go see them and the squirt once they were settled anyway. You get a rental in California to getcha around until then."

Dean came in to quit. . . or hell, to tell Bobby to fire him, and his stare must be a shell shocked as he feels, because Bobby scowls at him like he's particularly dense. "What the hell's the point of having a _family business_ if you don't take care of family?" Bobby shoves the money in his hand and points at the door impatiently, muttering. "What do I gotta do, put 'Singer and Sons' on the side of the goddamn building for it to sink into your skull? Go take care of your brother, idjit. You'll have tickets before you get to the gate."

So he goes. Cas is waiting outside of the little emergency care clinic that Dean likes to call a Doc-In-A-Box, his winter coat absentmindedly pulled on over his doctor's coat, hands shoved into his pockets, and he's in the car and adjusting the rattling heating vents as soon as Dean slows down for him. It doesn't cross Dean's mind to argue with him when he abruptly declares he'll be fine returning to work when they get back, or he won't, and either way he's going: he's overqualified for this job, aimed at med students and nurses, anyway. Maybe Dean's just getting used to the idea that people are going to override him every time he tries to do what's good for them, maybe it is sinking in that the people he loves are about as stubborn as he is and he's stuck with them, because he just shifts into drive and gets them home to cram clothes into bags.

Dean clings to the arms of the airplane during takeoff, and again once they're over the Missouri River and into the ashlands-gray sky and gray horizon and he's not sure how the pilots can tell one from the other. The engines are going to be ash-clogged. They're going to crash in the fucking badlands and if that doesn't kill them they'll starve to death or breathe in enough of the stuff that their lungs are concrete blocks and some isolationist wastelands freaks will eventually come pick at the crash site.

Cas is perfectly fine with the '_shut the fuck up'_part of Dean's orders, but he doesn't quite stick to the '_and let me deal with this'_ like he was told, snaking an arm around him, breathing slowly and deeply to encourage Dean to do the same, glowering protectively past him at any flight attendant or nosy passengers that looks like they want to give Dean tips. Eventually Dean gives up and lets Cas haul him in against his side with the stupid metal chair arm digging in between them, because Cas isn't going to leave well enough alone, because whatever chemical mate crap is between them makes it comforting no matter how much Dean still wants to rebel against that on principle, and because Dean doesn't know any of these people, so screw their opinions anyway. He doesn't want to die trapped and helpless on a flying tin can, but he's going to be there for Sam.

Dean won't let Cas shut the window shade, though. If he's going to die he wants to see it coming. He watches when Salt Lake City unfurls beneath them, humanity clustered as always around water even if it's pretty rank water, and then gone again too quickly.

Cas is entirely too calm about flying, but why wouldn't he be? The guy's _always_ a frikkin' passenger, and he's proved time and again that his concepts of self-preservation are all screwed up. So he just sits there with an arm around Dean and his warm hand snuck up under Dean's Henley to get skin contact, thumb rolling back and forth like he's trying to pet Dean without being called on it, and he broods because that's just Cas's default state. At least he knows better than to try to _talk_to Dean. Finally, they're over California and hurtling towards the ground so buildings and then boats and then cars and then people milling around like ants are visible, and Dean makes it through touchdown without hurling.

Cas, smart man that he is, doesn't mention any of it once they're back on solid ground, and doesn't do something stupid like move to take the rental keys from him. He's withdrawn into his own head, but they divide and conquer tasks without needing to coordinate it. By the time Dean has a car, Cas is throwing their retrieved bags into the trunk of it. The ride is silent: they don't know what to expect.

Sam's a mess of over-long limbs in a too-short chair in the hospital room, hair partially obscuring his worry worn face. The nurses shoot him sympathetic looks that he ignores as he watches Jess breathe through an oxygen mask, still and pale and clearly entirely unconscious, the blanket over her just emphasizing the swell of her stomach. The screen shows two heartbeats, and thank god that means Dean got here before anything happened.

Sam rockets to his feet when they come in, and then folds into Dean's hug, letting his brother brace him upright. Cas scowls critically around the hospital room, grabs Jessica's charts and medical history from the foot of her bed, and then wedges himself between the chair and the wall to read while Sam relays her collapse to Dean, interrupting to ask questions about whether she was dizzy, or felt pins and needles, or had a cough. When Dean coaxes Sam out into the waiting room for a cup of coffee and a chance to breathe, Cas stays in the room and takes up interrogating her doctors: if he's somehow misidentified as 'the family doctor,' it's not _entirely_ wrong in some respects and he doesn't bother correcting them. Dean doesn't understand a damn word of Cas's conversation, between 'hypocalcaemia' and 'laryngospasms' and 'serum calcium,' but he knows Cas gets what they're talking about.

Meeting Jess's parents is a strange, stilted thing—Sam's too wound up to really introduce them, and Dean pulls him aside after a few moments, when he's too tense to really stay. "She's gonna be okay, Sam. They're gonna be okay."

He can't promise that with any certainty, but he can damn sure hope for it.

The truth is, they all know there are risks: having kids has become a crapshoot in this day and age. Most people are having trouble conceiving at all, people are getting sick and others die trying. That's the justification the government gives for letting people keep Omegas strapped down or passed around and knocked up. . . always knocked up. . . because Omega 'breeders' seem damn near designed for just that purpose. It's not exactly _guilt_, but it's a queasy sort of feeling being in a place like this and seeing Sam and Jess and knowing that there are great people like them willing to risk it all to have a family, who will be amazing parents if just given the chance . . . and knowing that _he_with all his issues could probably pop out twins or something if he just stopped taking the pill.

The world is a fucked up and unfair place. Dean's still struggling with not taking on all the guilt for that. He doesn't know if he could handle losing his nephew and sister-in-law without feeling like shit for the sheer presumptiveness of those empty rooms back at the house. Because if anyone _deserves_ kids and family and a frikkin' cheesy Valentine's Day wedding and a white picket fence, it's his little brother, not him.

Castiel finds them after a few minutes, and Dean isn't sure why he's hit so hard with the memory that the last time Cas was working rounds in a hospital like this it was to preside over the death of a different Winchester. Dean's eyes snapping to Cas direct Sam's gaze, and he's on his feet again quickly, looming over Cas. "They are going to do an emergency Caesarian. The baby is far enough along to thrive, but Jessica's O2 levels have dropped low enough that they don't want to risk active labor." Cas's hand reaches out and squeezes Sam's shoulder, just as he did Dean's at John's bedside, and he tips his head towards the hospital room. "They're going to take her to a surgical suite. You should be there, Sam."

"Maybe you should be too." Dean interjects, as Sam pats Cas's hand on his arm and then takes off in a long-legged stride, afraid still even after Dean's attempts to help. "You're a doctor."

Running a hand through his hair, leaving it in tufts and curls of agitation, Castiel shakes his head slightly and instead takes Sam's abandoned chair at Dean's side, slumped in place. He did almost a full shift at the clinic before the trip, and Cas shows wear a lot more than he thinks he does. "_Jessica's_ condition I understand and can potentially assist with. This, I can't. I'm not an obstetrician, Dean, and this is not my area of surgical expertise." And he hates that, it's clear: hates that he's back to waiting helplessly. Knowing Cas, he probably takes this as a failure on his part, like he's supposed to know _everything._

Cas hates the waiting rooms the way Dean hates hospital rooms. In a waiting room, he's helpless and hopeless and tired. In a hospital room, he has the power, even if that power is just prying into medical records and _understanding_ things. It's the opposite for Dean: he can keep things together in the waiting room, be the support people need, but in the hospital room he's thirteen years old again and everything is over his head and out of his control.

Elbows across his knees, Cas nearly folds in half, head bowed and hands loosely clasped together, and waits. Dean figures maybe Cas can put in a good word for them with whatever higher power may or may not be out there; if God exists he owes this family a break. Cas leaves it to Dean to bolster the Moores, strangers though they are. They fall back on old routines naturally: Dean holding everyone together while putting aside himself, and Castiel praying to a God he lost faith in, in a waiting room like this one.

xXx

Robert Henry Winchester draws his first breath free of his mother at 4:57 pm and wails furiously, each breath coloring his too-pale cheeks until he's pink and healthy and angry with the world.

Jessica Moore regains consciousness later, and Sam falls apart between the two of them, trying not to tangle her IV drip as he buries his face in her hair, arm curled around their son, because Winchesters aren't supposed to cry. They are supposed to fight, though, and his fiancée and son fought their way into this family.

xXx

Everything is a blur after that; Dean and the Moores crowding into the hospital room to see Jessica and the baby, Jessica's breath rasping when she laughs that she expected her son to be _bigger_. He felt a lot bigger when she was carrying him around everywhere, and given the size of his father. . .

Dean hasn't let himself think back to it in years, really-to a time before everything was screwed up, when they had a shot at being normal. . . whatever the hell _that_ really means, given he was never going to be 'normal.' But he remembers family in a way Sam doesn't. He remembers his baby brother coming home in Mary's arms, just a tiny thing himself. In fact, Sam had always seemed like a bit of a runt until he finally just decided to outgrow Dean one summer and then fill out to match it, and chances are this little guy will do the same. Jessica reminds him so much of his mother, tucked into her hospital bed and doting on her son, that it's almost hard to stay in the room with them. That's one of maybe three pictures Dean's ever seen of he and John and Sam and Mary, all of them as a family.

If Sam had lost Jessica and the baby, would he have gone the way their father did after Mary died? There are too damn many feelings and emotions crowding Dean's head, clashing and conflicting, and he's just so damned _happy_ for Sam that he's not even sure where to begin.

Dean snaps the picture anyway with his phone, sending it on to Bobby, Ellen, Jo and even Charlie through text messages. He figures parents and grandparents get priority, so he lets the Moores have their time with their hospitalized daughter and their only grandchild without trying to crowd in, instead bumping shoulders with his brother. "He's a cute kid, Sam. ...Thank god he takes after Jess."

Sam's laugh is still fairly watery, and Dean finds himself pulled into another hug, thanked as if he actually did something useful for them by just showing up. If the Moores are surprised by Dean gruffly telling Sam to shut up mid-hug, and meaning it as a sign of affection, they'll have to get used to it. Sam, for his part, laughs again as he pulls back and looks around as if he's just realized something is missing.

"Where'd Cas duck out to?"

Dean tilts his head towards where they can see Castiel outside the room in the hall, eyes narrowed into a squint, head cocked to the side as he nods slightly in his understanding to one of the nurses there. He and the nurse alike are surprised when Sam grabs him by the elbow and pulls him into the room, yanked out of his natural habitat and back into the group, already being admonished by Sam. "You're not working. Don't you want to meet my son?"

"I. . . thought I could make myself useful?" Cas glances to Dean, as if Dean's supposed to make excuses for him, and narrows his eyes in a glare when Dean smirks at him and shrugs as if to say 'you're on your own here.' He falters again in the face of Sam's earnest look, which he doesn't know well enough to know is entirely affected just to make him feel bad for ducking out. "This seemed like a family affair. I didn't want to intrude."

Sam rolls his eyes, and pushes Cas towards the gathering around Jess, grabbing his brother by the elbow to join them. "_You're_ family."

Dean tries to hide his grin at Castiel's gratified and surprised expression and fails, instead letting himself greet his nephew, his phone buzzing as their distant family group-texts their congratulations.

xXx

After that, it seems as if Jess and Cas enter into some sort of conspiracy-neither Winchester is entirely sure when their respective significant others had time to bond, but Jess's sly smile and hoarse comment about running the meet-the-family gauntlet together and her taking pity on Cas seems to make sense to the two of them. Even here, exhausted and medicated and still clearly in pain, Jess's positivity seems to help settle Castiel's remaining nervousness.

They're all distracted by the baby, and don't notice they're being maneuvered until the plan is revealed. Cas has volunteered to be home care for her, so she can _get out of this creepy hospital_ a little earlier than planned. It just sort of cements their travel plans around it.

By the time visiting hours are over, Sam's got himself set up in a sleeper chair that looks half his size in Jessica's room, and Dean and Cas are dropping the Moores off at their hotel before heading to Sam and Jessica's place to make it recovery-ready and finish the last few things Sam was working on for the nursery when Jessica unexpectedly collapsed.

Sam's place is nice, a 'California lawyer moving up in the world' sort of way that's a bit too contemporary for Dean's taste, but it is exactly what he wanted for his little brother. Jess has a better eye for decorating than Sam ever did, bringing color into the space, but his brother's here in the modern looking furniture, black finished, functional and clean looking. Dean smirks to himself as he glances at a built-in open bookshelf separating rooms that he anticipates will probably be crawled through like it's a tiny person's personal doorway.

It's going to get fingerprints all over it and that'll show all the time in that finish. For some reason that amuses the hell out of him, settles him in the rightness that is Sam being a _dad_, and how much he's going to help his nephew learn to give his father hell to make up for the rebellious kid Sam was at times for Dean.

It's a great house. It's going to be a good home for Sam and Jess and the kid. Dean still prefers his beat up wooden bookshelves he picked up from the curb their first week in the house, sanded, stained, and braced to keep it from leaning once Cas got all his books on it, or the couch from his old apartment, frayed at the edges but deep enough that you never want to get up again when you sink into it. He's not as out of place here as he was at Cas's old family home (they probably put plastic covers on their uncomfortable fancy couches, pretentious freaks), but there's no sense of envy. It's a nice place, but it isn't his.

"What're you thinking?" The seat dips as Cas settles near him, immediately turning into his side with his legs hooked over Dean's to get close, shower-damp head drooping onto Dean's shoulder, more tired than he's been letting on. He's scrubbed clean in the guest bath and changed into his fussy pajamas that Dean still remembers from being arrested, but has come instead to associate with cold Sunday mornings and a shuffling Castiel trying to get coffee before its done brewing because he's '_cold, Dean_' though you'd never believe it.

What's he thinking about? How does he summarize all these impressions without having to _explain_ all these associations?

"That I don't even recognize a damn couch anymore, unless it has eighty throw pillows and four granny blankets on it." Dean curls an arm around Cas, ignoring the wet trickle of water from Cas tucking his head under Dean's.

"They're just quilts, Dean, and they're _comfortable_. And there are only four pillows and two quilts." This is a well-known routine, Dean making digs at Cas, Cas deflecting them in a deadpan and poking holes in Dean's exaggeration.

"Yeah whatever, gramps." Cas puffs a laugh, warm and cold at once against damp skin, but doesn't argue any more, and Dean rewards him with touch, free hand carding through Cas's hair slowly, absently amused by how it's already springing back into cow licks, untameable. It's soothing, mindless, and Cas's whole body leans into it like some sort of cat. If they stay here too long, Cas is going to fall asleep practically wedged into Dean's side and half on his lap, as unashamed as he ever is about seeking comfort from Dean. That's something Dean may never get used to, how little Cas cares about what people might think of them if they saw them like this.

And that's what Dean's actually thinking-what throw pillows and quilts _really_ are-and why he's comfortable here like this even in someone else's house surrounded by someone else's things. Sam's done exactly what he said he was doing, he built a life for himself here in California, and it's not Dean's life. . . but he's still welcomed in, doesn't feel left out in the cold. Back in South Dakota there's stupid blankets and ridiculous throw pillows, and they're just objects, but they're Cas and Cas is _home_, and that's. . . that's pretty significant.

Cas is silent too long, growing heavier against Dean, so he tugs lightly on Cas's hair to raise his head up, only to find himself glared at balefully for trying to keep Cas awake. That's Cas, though: throwing himself into everything with all he has until he's completely burned out once he stops. He used to think Cas was just a morning person, and didn't realize it's more Cas neglects taking care of himself until he can't ignore it any more, the way Dean's always been accused of, and a good night's sleep is like the reset button for him. He's gotten used to it, and knows they look out for each other now. "C'mon, Cas. I'm not carrying you up the steps, and we're getting started early tomorrow."

As they settle in to the guest bed of Sam's house, Cas winding around him, there's a sense of incompleteness to Dean's thoughts, as if he didn't quite chase them to their conclusion, but not out of avoidance. It's not until two days later that they're pushed to the forefront again, and he shouldn't be surprised Sam's behind it.

The first day is busy, Cas staying long enough at a pharmacy that Dean's pretty certain they should have started charging him rent, reading every box, grumbling over the quality of home medical supplies compared to their cost, and arguing when a pharmacist tried to give him name brand instead of what he swears is an identical generic, to the point of getting the on-call physician at the hospital on the phone and having them change the order. Dean lets him do his thing, getting the tools he needs to get the changing table Sam still had in the box put together right, because all that modern furniture means flat-packed boxes, and he doesn't trust anything to support his nephew that can compact down to being less than a foot tall, without checking it himself first.

They're productive, both of them, once Sam brings Jess and the baby home. Dean cooks, a full 'doctor approved' meal that is a hell of a lot better than what the hospital was feeding them, and Cas has Sam and Jess's room ready to be a hospital suite as needed. They're not house guests, they're the help—and given Dean's been trying to take care of Sam all his life, and Cas is naturally inclined towards aiming for 'usefulness,' it's not strange. Cas checks Jessica's vitals, administers a daily shot, doles out medications on a down-to-the-minute schedule, and generally treats this like he's back at a hospital, with only one patient to care for.

Sam insists he'll take care of the baby every time he wakes up through the night, but by the end of the second day he's exhausted, and Dean confiscates the baby monitor to give his brother a night's sleep he clearly didn't get in the hospital with Jess. Dean handles the midnight and 2AM wake-ups just fine on his own, but the 4:30 cry through the monitor he's apparently a little slower at, because Cas is out of bed and padding barefoot in his pajamas to the nursery by the time Dean takes his head out from under the pillow.

"Hello, Robert." Cas's already low voice is strangely distorted by the baby monitor next to Dean's ear, and he turns it down, swinging his feet off of the bed and palming the monitor. Cas's lack of 'practical experience' means Dean is half sure he's going to be called for, but he's strangely reluctant to interrupt Cas's attempts. Rather than let the sound carry to Jess and Sam, Dean slips out of the bedroom himself, past the nursery and to the patio, where he'll be nearer if Cas needs him, and the sound won't bother anyone. It's _cold_out there, Dean tucking his feet beneath him and curling tightly into the corner of the bench that wraps around the patio, his breath fogging the air and robe wrapped around him.

Robert (Bobby? Rob? Hell, Dean doesn't know, it seems strange to give the kid a nickname before he can pick it himself) cries through a diaper change, and through Cas warming up a bottle (novice move, should have gotten the food first for the kid). Even after the baby's eagerly sucking down his new meal he's apparently keeping himself awake. By the time the sliding door admits a bedraggled looking Sam out to sit next to him, Dean's smirking to himself and listening to Cas hum on the monitor with his eyes closed, head back against the railing.

"Is that. . . Enter Sandman?"

"Yep." Cas's rendition may be off-tempo, but Dean knows the song anywhere. Apparently time in the garage and travelling in the car with Dean has had an impact. Or maybe that's what he had stuck in his head on the plane and he didn't realize it until he got in stuck in Cas's head too.

"Huh." Neither of them is fully awake, and Dean doesn't expect the conversation to turn deep or anything. Hell, they should both be in bed and not outside in the middle of January, there's no excuse for them to be worrying that the only professional caregiver among them can't handle one fussy newborn. "I'm really happy for you guys."

"Pretty sure that's my line, Sammy." Dean laughs but Sam doesn't, and Dean can _feel_ Sam looking at him and being way too serious for it not even being 5 AM yet.

"You don't even see it, do you?" Dean sighs, giving up on sitting quietly and raising his head up to squint at his brother as over the baby monitor Cas falters Enter Sandman and starts something that it'll probably take a few more bars for Dean to even figure out what he's trying to do. "How much you've changed in like half a year."

Yeah, he's noticed. He's just not sure he's okay with it.

Dean's tense again, and Sam holds up both hands in an attempt to placate him, and he barrels over Dean before Dean can say something dismissive. "I just mean, it's good to see you _happy,_Dean. Like, really happy. And it's _okay_ for you to be happy."

"Say 'happy' about five more time, Sammy, I think you didn't really get it across yet." Dean drawls, accepting Sam's answering glare easily.

"You don't have to make a joke out of it, Dean."

"Yeah, I do."

"You're a pain in the ass." Sam's always been shorter-tempered with Dean's sense of humor when he's tired, and it makes Dean smirk and remember a petulant pre-teen who got pissed whenever Dean sarcastically suggested naptime. "I'm just saying. . . It feels like we finally figured it out, right?"

Dean should pretend he has no idea what Sam's talking about, and send him back to bed so he stops staring earnestly at him. Instead, he finds himself shrugging uncomfortably, turning the monitor down. They both have issues, hang-ups left behind by their childhood, though Dean's undeniably racked up more of them. Sam was always destined to get out, have this. "_You_ did. Jess, the baby, career, house, wedding right around the corner. . ."

"You and Cas have jobs. A house. A relationship." Sam reminds him gently, as if Dean's trying to stack them up side by side and compare, and doing an unfair job of it. He gets an eyeroll for his trouble.

"Dude, I know that. Okay? But we're not there yet."

"You could be."

"What, you want me and Cas to swing by Vegas on our way home, get some Elvis impersonator to do the honors, then get to work on popping out babies? Crash your wedding, steal the preacher and say 'hey, I've been legally a person for two months and he stopped being a priest like a week ago, let's do this'?" There's a scathing note to Dean's retort, and to his credit Sam doesn't respond in kind.

"No. Not Vegas. If you guys get married without me there I'll be pissed." Dean blinks at Sam's tone, surprised, and Sam smiles that doofy kid smile that Dean didn't know he could still do any more until he couldn't stop it in the hospital, with Robert and Jess. "Don't say you haven't thought about it, Dean. I _know_ you, okay? Cas and you, you're good together, and you've _both_ been changing, okay? Not him changing you. And you can't tell me you're sitting out here risking frostbite listening to your boyfriend mangle Johnny Cash to my son because you hate the idea of you two having a family."

Sam allows Dean's lack of retort stand just long enough to emphasize that he's looking for some smartassed way to derail this conversation and coming up short. "Just think about it, okay? But. . . You know, all our family _will_be here in a couple weeks. And you're both supposed to be renting tuxes anyway. . ."

Shit, he's _actually_ suggesting that Dean and Cas tie the knot, in a marriage-not-pervy-joke sort of way. And he sprung it on Dean when he's half asleep. That's just _diabolical._Sam takes the baby monitor back from him, tucking it into the pocket of his robe. "Sounds like he's going back to sleep. I'll get the next time if you make breakfast when you wake up? Jess likes waffles and I screw up that waffle iron thing every time . . . "

He never should have let Sam learn negotiation and legal tactics. Combined with puppy dog eyes, Dean doesn't stand a chance.

"Yeah, okay then." Dean mutters resentfully, too aware he's being played, letting Sam float a huge life-changing suggestion like that, and then redirect the conversation, but he gets to his feet and steps inside when Sam opens the door.

It's not about commitment, or whatever Sam thinks it is. It's about _expectations_. It's about the fact that the same assholes in society that look down on him will act like he's listened to their goddamn criticism enough that he finally 'settled down,' did things 'right,' if he and Cas made this official somehow. They're fighting for him to be an equal, and he's afraid he'd just fit right back into the role they think he's made for.

Then again, it's them. He's sure he can spit in the eye of expectations. But would that be proving he gives a shit _what_ they think?

It's a circular argument, he knows. The realization that it's _fear_again deciding something for him is pissing him off, too.

He's back in bed before Cas is, ignoring the hiss of surprise at how cold he is from sitting outside when Cas slips back under the covers with him and finds himself tugged into Dean's arms, back flush against Dean's cold chest, used as the human space heater he is. The swap in position doesn't throw Cas at all, his hands rubbing up and down Dean's arms around him as if he's worried about hypothermia. "Dean, why are you freez. . .?"

Fuck it.

Dean's all-in. He's been all-in for a while, and he knows by now that Cas has been since they met.

"You wanna get hitched, Cas?"


	45. Chapter 45

"This is an exercise in futility, Dean."

"Uh-huh. You've cut open a brain before, you can handle waffles. Now shut up and whisk, Cas."

"I am horrified of what you think my work must entail, if you believe medical practice is even _remotely_ a transferrable skill when it comes to the kitchen. Or that it involves a 'whisk.'"

The laugh from the other room drifts in to them, alerting them to their audience, and Dean plants a kiss to Cas's temple before letting go of him, abandoning him in his flour-dusted battlefield to go offer Jess an arm to brace herself on as she lowers carefully into an armchair, as Sam has his arms full with the baby.

"Don't let us interrupt you." Jess smiles at him, holding her hands out for Sam to pass her their son, determined to get her own chance with him. Three men all running around insisting it's their turn to take care of her and the baby means she's had less time with her child than she'd like since they got out of the hospital. "You two are cute."

"Nah, this is normal. And we're not cute. Don't tell him he's cute when he whines . . ." Dean corrects her, but his heart's not in it if the grin is anything to go by, and he's kept from finishing by Castiel abandoning his post, stepping up behind Dean and putting the bowl of batter in his hands without a by-your-leave, freeing his hands to grab the portable air purifier and move it near Jess, hooking a blanket out of a cabinet.

"I am not whining. I'm a doctor, not a chef, Dean. And we've _had_ this conversation before, but you insist that I have secret culinary skills I've managed to hide my entire adult life. Move." He commands Dean, so he can get to Jess, mostly so that he can make himself busy outside of the kitchen. He's _completely_ capable of finishing breakfast, he just doesn't want to unless Dean's in there with him.

"Now you're whining _and_ pouting. And don't give me orders, asshole." Dean moves, though, but takes his time about it so Cas knows it's not because he demanded it, winning an fond eye-roll from Castiel as he drapes a blanket over Jess's lap. He stays to clip a monitor onto her finger to check her O2 and pulse, still determined to do his job even as it's becoming less urgent, and any day now entirely unnecessary.

"Stop cussing in front of my kid." Sam drops himself onto the couch beside Jess's chair, watching her feed the baby, but he shoots a glance at his brother and Cas. "I thought he was just making a Star Trek reference badly." Sam confesses, earning a bark of laughter from Dean and a confused look from Cas.

"No, he's still clueless."

"You're being mean to your boyfriend." Jess chides Dean, trying not to laugh. Though he doesn't look up from his work as he removes the monitor again and makes a note for himself, Cas is triumphant in his correction.

"Fiancé."

As Dean moves past him towards the kitchen, he spares Cas a punch in the shoulder that rocks the Alpha in place but doesn't do anything to displace the small smile at advancing in Dean's game of one-upmanship. "Way to ruin the announcement."

"I'm sorry, is an engagement supposed to be something handled with a little more _romance_and _planning_than that, Dean?" There's a teasing undertone to Cas's level retort that Dean answers with an amused 'yeah, yeah, shut up' and a middle finger, but Castiel assumes that means he won. No, either way he won. The proposal may have been abrupt, unromantic, and nothing like what he'd hoped to do for Dean, but it's the outcome that matters and he is wholly, completely happy with the outcome. Dean wants to _marry_him.

Dean doesn't get a chance to escape. Sam has long arms, and he finds himself being hugged and back-slapped and congratulated, and Jess carefully moves the baby up against her shoulder so she can give them both one-armed hugs from her chair. "No wonder you two are both so happy this morning."

It's too good an opportunity to pass up, and Dean refuses to lose when it comes to banter. "Nah, that's just because of all the sex."

Cas flushes red, mumbles something about finishing breakfast, takes the batter out of Dean's hands, and escapes back to the kitchen. The hilarity of it is completely worth the bitchface Dean gets from Sam or how Cas will pay him back for that later.

"No, this is wonderful." Jess is smiling, ignoring their antics as she strokes a finger down the baby's cheek, and she smiles at Dean.

"We can have a double wedding. It'll be perfect."

xXx

It is not, in fact, perfect.

"He just_fired_ the pastor, Dean."

Jess was already standing on the porch, arms folded, when Dean, Sam and Charlie pulled up from the last run to the courthouse to file pre-wedding paperwork and swing by to let Dean see the progress on the halfway house. They ended up spending a bit longer than they intended so he could try coaxing one of the teenaged Omegas into speaking to him, or even telling Dean her name, still traumatized from the farm they took her off of in their the first sanctioned inspection. He got a name and enough information to try and track down if she was abducted or sold into this, and that's a start, but the raw reddened band of skin around her neck is going to haunt him for a while. They're doing the right thing, and they're helping, but he's pissed at the system again and wasn't ready to come put out fires among his family.

Like Cas unexpectedly pulling the rug out from under all of their wedding plans in the couple of hours Dean was absent.

Blonde hair pulled up in a ponytail, rosy color in her cheeks from waiting for them on the porch, Jess is the personification of bridal wrath. She's recovered well since the hospitalization, and now she's shouldering most of the wedding planning herself, with Cas supposedly helping her. While she was recovering, Cas's help definitely a boon, particularly as the Winchester boys are pretty much happy to rubber stamp their approval of whatever makes their respective partners happy for the wedding without making any decisions themselves.

"The wedding is less than a week away, and we don't have anyone to officiate it and we're losing our church, too."

"I'll talk to him." Dean promises, and slips past her into the house, leaving it to Sam to find out what's going on from his future wife because Dean's pretty sure from the looks of Jess that she's about to start crying, too upset to do otherwise, and he can't handle more tears now after that kid at the halfway house broke his heart all over again. He calls out a greeting to Bobby as he passes through the living room, and gets a grunt in return that would seem a lot more like the crotchety old man he pretends to be, if he weren't comfortably ensconced in the couch with his namesake's tiny fingers reflexively clenched in his beard and a spit-up cloth on his shoulder, a grandfather now whether in name or legally or not, and proud to be.

"He's sulking in the guest room. You tell that boy his little fit over 'deliberately misgendering him in a misguided attempt to insult him' is bull, and if he acts less like _Bridezilla_about this wedding crap I won't have to call him on it."

Dean exchanges a look with Charlie, who drops herself down in the armchair beside Bobby like they're dividing to deal with the various persnickety personalities in this house. This arrangement leaves Cas for Dean to defuse, which . . . well, even if everyone didn't pretty much bank on Dean being the only one to really _get_ Cas, he'd have picked Cas for his angle on this.

There's what looks like an x-ray up on Cas's laptop screen, and deep frown marring his features, eyes narrowed to a squint as he works. He convinced the clinic to let him consult remotely until he can get back, just to keep his job, but Dean knows he's also finally applied to the county hospital since the proposal. He wants a better job, something that will support them if they do have a family. As much as he's convinced that Zachariah will find a way to sabotage him from afar when his potential employers call him for a rundown of what happened in Lawrence, he got up the guts to at least _try_for something better_._ Dean's proud of him for taking the chance—he knows Cas isn't comfortable with it, and is going to take it as a personal failure if he doesn't get the job.

Of course, Cas also seems to swing back and forth on the priest thing between being convinced that he failed the church, and furious at what he sees as the church failing Dean. Cas's life is still in upheaval, even as they settle down, though he'd never admit it. Dean would bet whatever the hell is happening today is probably symptomatic of that problem.

Shrugging off his jacket and toeing off his boots, Dean plants himself next to Cas on the bed, shoulder to shoulder, and watches the mouse pointer zip around, zooming in and out, and clicking areas. He's ignored in favor of the computer until the staccato typing ceases suddenly and Cas finally addresses him without looking up, prickly and defensive without a word exchanged between them. "This is not as dire as it's being presented. The guests can be updated by email to meet at a new location, statistically the winter months are not as busy for wedding venues, and we will not be married by _that_ pastor."

He stabs enter, sending off his work, and continues in the next breath, his voice low and furious, and Dean now understands why Jess and Bobby left him for Dean to deal with. "Nearly _anyone_with an internet connection and the urge to be ordained by some off-branch of a faith can officiate a marriage. Ship captains can hold a wedding. You can be married by celebrity impersonators, or people wearing prosthetic elf ears. Even high ranking members of the Salvation Army could theoretically conduct a ceremony in the middle of a thrift shop, if they so choose-"

"Salvation Army, huh? I'll tell Jess, we'll see if we can get them to pencil us in. Save a bundle on venue costs, probably get someone on a used keyboard there for music. I wanna stick an old fur coat on Bobby anyway, seems like as good an excuse as I'll ever get." Dean cuts him off before he can build up more steam, and gets a dirty look for the quip, but that's eye contact and definitely a forward step, especially with Castiel trying not to laugh at the mental image.

Dean's already got a good idea of what happened, though, just from that one rant. Cas may be saying he fired the preacher, but he's the one seeming pissed off and insulted. Add to that the fact that Dean already got his daily reminder of what the world thinks of him, and he's not convinced. He cuts right to the point. "So which one of us did they get all pissy about, the ex-priest or the Omega?"

". . . Me." Castiel's lie is transparent, eyes flitting back to the screen because he can't meet Dean's stare when he's not telling the truth, and that's pretty much all the explanation Dean needs. Some church doesn't want an Omega Male profaning their altar with his doctrine-contradicting existence, and Cas is pissed. If this were about Cas swallowing his own pride on something theological, he knows Cas would do it. But if he's getting protective over Dean he'd let the entire family blame him for getting in a snit before he admits what's going on and risks making Dean uncomfortable, letting people's prejudices creep in and taint their wedding. Dean doesn't call him on the lie. He'll let Cas think he spared his mate some measure of insult.

"Well then fuck 'em. You're the expert, Cas, find us someone else, just do it _quickly_before Jess blows a gasket."

It _doesn't_ bother him that Cas booted some stiff-necked preacher. Hell, it makes it all better. As long as they don't derail Sam and Jess's wedding, he's just obstinate enough to like the idea that they're making heads roll to get their own. So far, his own contribution to wedding planning has looked a hell of a lot like the same legal battle he and Sam have already been fighting, with signed and filed papers to get a license despite who he is. This entire thing would never fly in South Dakota, and they may or may not even recognize the marriage as legal, but that's a battle for another day.

Of course, usually in that battle Cas doesn't go asking for forms and emailing Charlie without him, thinking he's at _all_adept at doing things behind Dean's back.

"Charlie picked some things up at the courthouse for. . ." Cas doesn't wait for an end to the sentence, he just closes the computer and puts it back on the end table as he slides off the bed. He hesitates then, facing Dean at the door as if he's not sure if Dean's angry at him too. Dean pushes himself back to his feet, knocking his elbow against Cas lightly on his way out. "I'll back your play with my family on the preacher thing, Cas. C'mon. Show me what you've been up to."

Cas's assurances that he'll fix 'his mess' with the pastor mollify Jess, who searches his face for a minute before coming to some conclusion of her own and offering him her forgiveness with an unexpected hug. There are no hugs exchanged between Castiel and Bobby, though no one expected there to be: Bobby shakes his head and turns back to the baby, and they're pretty much back to normal without discussion. Charlie at this point is nearly vibrating in anticipation of being able to speak, and she pulls one of her perpetual manila folders out of her briefcase, passing it to Cas as soon as he looks at her. "Got it. Brought my notary stamp and everything, too, we're set. Did you . . .?"

"Not yet. Dean, can we . . .?" Cas tilts his head towards the kitchen, away from their family, and Dean raises an eyebrow at him. They _just_ left a room where they were alone, and however excited Charlie seems, Cas seems _nervous_again and Sam is as confused as Dean.

"Yeah, okay."

Cas doesn't take a seat at the table, too tightly wound to sit down, he just opens the folder and checks it over, pulling the pen clipped to the front and setting it on the table. "I wanted. . ." Cas's nose scrunches faintly as he tries to figure out how to explain, and Dean can tell when he completely revises whatever he's planned to say. "I don't want what happened to Jimmy, to Claire and Amelia, to happen to you . . ."

Dean pulls out a chair and sits down, elbows on the table, trying to figure Cas out again. "Just spit it out, Cas."

"If anything happens to me I want you to be financially stable, and I want you to make my family's fiscal lives miserable. These are in theory a will and a modified prenuptial agreement, but Charlie assures me these are as cut-throat as possible and give you the complete control over my trust if anything should happen to me. Lucifer will, of course, fight it the moment we file . . . but they're legally binding."

It's funny and a little staggering how the idea of the prenup being used against him in a divorce hasn't even crossed Cas's mind, or is completely beneath his mention. As for the rest, it's morbid, and a little spiteful, another thorn in Lucifer's side and a smack in the face to his idea of what their family _should_be, and Dean could get behind the spite aspect if it didn't hinge on them breaking up or Cas _dying_. That's really not something he wants to think about right now. Cas is going to live to be ninety if Dean has any say, and be the best grumpy old man he can be, which Dean is pretty sure is going to be impressively grumpy.

"You know I don't want your money, and nothing's going to happen to you, Cas." He takes the papers when they're passed over, anyway, and with a glance at them he pauses, brow furrowing as 'Castiel Winchester' appears on every page. "These are screwed up. She got the name. . ."

Castiel takes the paper-clipped next section out from underneath what Dean's reading, and places it on top, caps locked title catching Dean's eye, and suddenly a lot of things about Cas today make sense. None of this is about the will, or the prenup. Not really.

PETITION FOR CHANGE OF NAME

"I was born an Allen, and changed it to Novak to_distance_ myself from family. I know you don't want to be regarded as Omega property changing hands, and wouldn't want the traditional Beta bride's role of changing your name. I thought. . ." Dean pulled him into this family, made it his own, and Cas doesn't _care_about tradition and the fact that he's the Alpha of the two of them. He changed his name to run away from the mess at home. Now he's asking permission to change it again and join Dean's family, to build a future with him and for any children they have together to be_Winchesters_ in name and spirit. All this hesitation and nervousness is because the poor naive bastard _wants_to be a Winchester despite all the mess that comes with it.

This is probably closer to a proposal than Dean's middle of the night actual proposal, and Cas is worried he's going to be turned down?

"I didn't want to presume. . . Charlie was supposed to draw up a second set of paperwork under Novak but she w-" Dean cuts him off with a hand over his mouth as he rises from his chair, other hand pushing the name change documents to Castiel across the table.

"Sign the damn paper, Cas." When he kisses him just to keep him shut up, he hears an excited clap, like Charlie was blatantly eavesdropping, and the rest of his family's been pretty suspiciously quiet too.

"You're a bunch of nosy assholes!" He calls out to the other room.

"_Stop cussing in front of my son, Dean!"_

Castiel laughs despite himself at the reminder of just what kind of family he's signing up for, eyes closed and forehead pressed to Dean's, and Dean grins.

Their lives are strange as hell. Court documents have become romantic gestures, neurology is pillow talk, sarcasm is flirting, 'shut up' means 'I love you,' pie is foreplay, and dates are nights spent in watching old movies Dean's seen half a hundred times already while Cas bitches about the factual errors in fiction. Someday they're going to have to explain to their kids that their first date was either assault, arrest, drinking in a church, or a Biggerson's dinner and a bar brawl some time later, depending upon how detailed they're planning to get about how they got together.

So no, it's not perfect. Never has been, and they wouldn't expect their wedding to be, either.

But it's pretty damn good.

xXx

"Who the hell gets married on Valentine's day?"

"You do, dumbass. Obviously. Or you damn well better after all this work." Jo squints critically at Dean's hair and attacks it again. They're tucked away in one of the small rooms of the Swedenborgian Church, a word Dean doesn't think he could ever say without screwing it up, no matter how patiently Cas continually corrects him on it. But Cas liked their progressive non-denominational service, it was already on Jess's list of possible places, and once the big church wedding fell apart with their inclusion Jessica fell in love with the little tile-roofed church with its rambling gardens, and now here they are, because Sam's a miracle worker and Jess is hard to say no to, and they scrambled to be added to the schedule.

Compared to the massive traditional church Cas haunted back in Lawrence, or the one he showed Dean in Chicago, this place is tiny. Bent wooden branches act as the support beams, candles line the back of the altar, and sunlight streams through the simple stained-glass windows and from the walled gardens. If Dean had been driving down the steep San Francisco street outside, he'd have missed this place entirely, thought it was just an old house and not a little church on the national landmarks registry.

But there's foil valentines hearts around the mirror in here, and candy hearts with phrases as saccharine as the candy itself on the table, and that's the current subject of Dean's ire.

"No, _Sammy_ gets married on Valentine's Day because he's a sap."

"You're kinda missing the point here, Dean." Sam had to sit down for Charlie to fuss over him, and he's managed not to smack her hands away from his hair, which is kind of a miracle. He's protective of that mop, and didn't think Dean offering him one of Charlie's scrunchies was funny.

"If you're about to tell me how romantic it is, spare me the. . ."

Sam interrupts him, with that impish look like he's convinced he's brilliant and funny. "Valentine's Day means I only have one important date night to remember."

Oh. Well, then. Dean grudgingly nods, accepting that excuse, and Sam grins at his brother's reflection in the mirror.

"No offense, Sam, but you haven't kept your own calendar since college." Charlie fixes his collar again, and takes tightening Sam's tie a little too far for fun. "You thought it was _sweet_, you big softie. You don't have to pretend with us. . ."

A tentative knock on the door later, Claire pops her head into the room and looks at Jo and Charlie as she tries very hard not to mess up her own hair, artfully curled and piled to suit her flower girl dress. "Mrs. Harvelle told me to get you. She said that they're done the pictures of just Jessica, and they want all the bridesmaids now. . ."

"Don't touch your hair." Jo warns Dean, stabbing a finger into his chest, fire in her eyes. He fixes it the second she's out the door, though Sam almost seems to be sitting on his hands to keep himself from reflexively doing the about that sits wrong with Dean, the idea of being still that long. All of this is just way too formal for him.

"I need a drink."

Sam rolls his eyes, but the next person through the now open door is already throwing a flask at Dean, and he catches it just to keep it from hitting him in the head because if he shows up at that altar with a bruised temple, someone will throw a fit.

"As a best man, it's my job to keep the 'bride' happy and from running out on my brother. Even if that means getting him drunk first."

"Fuck off, Gabe." But Dean takes a swig from the flask anyway, because annoying smartass or not, Gabriel always seems to know where the good alcohol is and because he's a jackass to everyone, not singling Dean out specifically. In a way, that's refreshing, and the sarcastic faux animosity works for them. "Everyone here?"

"Please. Like I'd ever let my little bro down." Gabriel lounges in the doorway, blocking them from anyone else entering while he pops a chocolate covered strawberry Dean _knows_ is from the dessert table into his mouth, before cramming the plate into the trash to destroy the evidence that he's sampling. "I dropped Emmanuel with Castiel already, got everyone else set. I figure Manny'll fidget in the hall until. . ."

"No, I'm not." The man at the door has the wrong suit jacket and wrong color tie on for the wedding party and he holds himself differently, marking him as Cas's twin. By appearances he's too clean-shaved and well-groomed to be Castiel, but Dean's eyes narrow as Emmanuel darts a surreptitious glance at the plate in the trash before affecting an exasperated expression and gesturing down the hall, entreating his elder brother's help. "Balthazar has found the food and drinks. More significantly, he found the waitress and. . . ."

Gabriel rolls his eyes, nods in understanding and claps Emmanuel on the shoulder, taking off out into the hall to go rescue the wait staff from his more lecherous brother and do his job as Cas's best man. Blue eyes turn on Sam, then, and Dean swears he can see gears turning while Emmanuel lives up to Gabriel's predictions, fidgeting slightly before finally addressing Sam. "If it's not an imposition, may I talk to Dean privately a moment?"

It's polite, a bit meek, and _devious._Sam falls for it like the big sap he is, trying to bring family unity about and aware as they all are that only a few of Cas's brothers even made the trip, a miniscule attendance for the man who technically has the biggest family. "Of course, man, yeah."

Dean waits until the door closes before stepping well into "Emmanuel's" personal space as he reaches past the Alpha and flicks the cheap lock on the door. "If your brother gets roped into wedding pictures in your place, it's your own fault. You try and send him up to the altar for you, though, and I'll kick your ass in front of both of our families."

Castiel smiles, pleased with himself for the deception and with Dean for not being taken in by it, tilting his chin up to steal a kiss, before letting himself be crowded over towards the bench Sam just vacated. "You knew."

"Yeah, I knew." Cas is his _mate_. Considering how crappy Cas is at lying it was a darn good act, but did he really think that trick would work on Dean? And anyway, he's distracting as hell like this, and even though Dean knows his entire family would be ticked over him mussing up two out of three grooms, he really, _really_ wants to. "How long do you figure we have until someone else finds out?"

xXx

Not long enough, it turns out.

Ellen glares at them when Dean stumbles out into the hall while answering the door, laughing, Cas's borrowed tie in hand, completely aware that in their current state of kiss-bruised lips, untucked shirts and open collars, that it's obvious what they were getting up to even without Ellen able to pick up on the scent of arousal in the air. Behind him, Cas is doing an admirable job of pretending he wasn't just caught making out by Dean's mother figure of all people.

She shoves a black jacket and blue tie at Cas with a look that could put fear in the devil himself.

"I may've been born at night, but it wasn't _last_night." And Cas is by far not the first of her children, surrogate or by birth, that she's caught in an elaborate scheme. "And in a church, too. You'd think of all people..."

"Actually, while there are many things I disagree with them on theologically, by Swedenborgian interpretation of scripture, we're all just vessels for our God-given souls, and the intermingling of . . ." Castiel's hasty explanation is cut short when Ellen points toward the exit into the garden imperiously while Dean tries and fails to not laugh again at how big a frikkin _nerd_ Cas is. From the glance Cas shoots him, lips curving up slightly, he thinks that laugh may have been the point.

Castiel is learning Dean's tricks, in his own way. Dean would kiss him again for that if he wasn't pretty sure Ellen would make them regret it.

"Go 'intermingle' your way out the damn door, Castiel." As Cas obligingly scampers, still not-so-secretly terrified of the Harvelle women, she gives Dean a look as if she blames him for Cas's behavior though _Cas_ snuck in to _him_.

"He was nervous." Dean chastises her once Cas is out of earshot, entirely unapologetic.

"Uh-huh. Sure he was. And sticking his tongue down your throat was the only thing that'd calm his nerves?"

Dean grins, shrugs, and rebuttons his suit jacket. "Hasn't failed yet. I should go make sure he gets his tie on frontwards, too . . ."

Ellen rolls her eyes, and points him toward the front of the church, swatting him upside the back of his head as he goes. "Go wait with your brother."

xXx

In a larger church, the crowd gathered for them would probably feel too small, rows left open at the back and an echo in the room. Here every seat is full and the room buzzes with everyone they care about, Jess's family on one side watching the baby, and Dean and Sam's adoptive family on the other, the few open spaces taken by Balthazar and Emmanuel and the Novaks folded in among them. It's tight, even with Jo, Gabriel, Charlie and one of Jessica's cousins all waiting in the wings to go up front, the rest of the 'bridal party' so to speak.

Standing in the alcove in front of the church, hidden out of sight, it looks like it's starting to hit Sam now that he's looking at everyone there.

Dean takes a hit from the flask he stole from Gabriel, then holds it out wordlessly to his brother, who absently wipes the lip with the sleeve of his jacket and takes a long pull himself. If Dean hadn't impulsively decided to get married today with him, he'd be the best man for Sam, and so he can't help filling the role. Charlie's an awesome stand-in, but Dean carries booze, knows when to shut up, and doesn't give a crap about Sam's hair. He pockets the flask again when the minister takes his place, and that's their cue to go out front. Some sort of light, airy classical music drifts through the space, and Dean has to give it to Jess it works a lot better than 'Here Comes the Bride,' whatever it is.

Claire leads them in, practiced, a little solemn as if this is a serious job she's been entrusted with, and in the second row Dean can see Amelia snapping pictures of her, Chuck nervously at her side. If it's weird for Amelia being at Castiel's wedding, it doesn't show from here, and Chuck actually _being_ there is the icing on the cake, something neither Dean nor Cas expected.

Gabriel leads Jo in, arm-in-arm, and in her heels Jo's actually taller than Cas's pain in the ass brother. Smirking about it gets Dean elbowed once they make it up front, though, and are flanking him. Charlie leads in Jessica's cousin, and if Dean got in trouble for finding something amusing he figures stepping on Jo's foot for her rolling her eyes at how completely okay Charlie is with a different hot blonde on her arm is fair game. Dean figures it's a toss-up if Charlie takes one of the two Beta women in the wedding party home with her tonight, but if it's Jo he _really_ doesn't want details.

There's nothing particularly traditional about this wedding—Sam and Jess's wedding probably would have been, with their church, and the minister, and her father giving her away; a clean-cut American ideal. No one is giving anyone away here, though, and the two newest members of their family come up the aisle arm and arm to join them as equals, and _they're actually doing this_.

They're standing in a church, pretending to be normal, or worse not even _pretending_, and it suddenly strikes Dean that they did this all very_quickly._The relationship, the wedding. . .

He needs another drink. He needs the wedding to be over so he and Cas can just get in the Impala and head home, back to their lives. He needs the damn tie not to be quite so tight around his neck. He needs everyone he knows not to be staring at him while he does this. All the people around are making him claustrophobic and while he knows they're not judging him, he still feels judged.

As Cas steps up beside him he realizes he had everything backwards this morning: _he's_ nervous. Cas came to comfort _him._It's a complete turnaround from when it comes to court cases, where Cas is the nervous wreck. Dean's been trying so hard to pretend he's got it together that the_only_ person he managed to convince of that was himself. He's probably been broadcasting his anxiety to everyone around him, particularly all the Alphas, and especially Cas who can't _help_ but be aware of Dean even before he stopped scent-blocking every minute of every day.

_"Please take your partner by the hand. . ."_

Cas takes his hands and squeezes his fingers, and Dean lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, dizzy at suddenly having air again. The minister, a step up from them, is speaking to the gathering, explaining the blessings of matrimony or whatever, and Cas leans in to Dean, his voice a low murmur.

"This doesn't have to change anything but my name, Dean."

_"The vows exchanged here are a promise, that from this day forward you shall not walk alone. . ."_

"Shut up, Cas." Dean grits out, and Castiel smiles faintly, thumbs brushing Dean's knuckles, slow and soothing, the comfort sinking into him, chemistry he's trying to ignore because he'll be antsy if he damn well wants to. Former priest or not, Cas seems to be ignoring the church aspect and the minister, staring at Dean like he's trying to memorize him as if they don't wake up next to each other every morning, as if Dean's something miraculous and new.

"_There is no greater gift to give than love, the acceptance of the faults and strengths of your partner, and commitment to walk beside them in all things, to offer them shelter in your heart . . ."_

Cas is right, though Dean isn't going to tell him that. This isn't a collar closing around Dean's neck, it isn't the start of ownership. Their life together is their choice, and they've pretty much got it figured out by now. If Dean can get himself to look at it that way, this becomes just a party. With booze, and their families, and cake, with a hotel, guaranteed mind-blowing sex, and then a road trip afterwards. It's just everyone else figuring out that they're it for it each other, when they already know that by now.

_"Samuel and Jessica, Dean and Castiel, you come before us today signifying your desire to be formally united in marriage. In taking each other by the hand, do you promise to love and cherish each other, honor and sustain each other, in sickness and in health and poverty and wealth, and to be true to one another in all things until Death alone shall part you?"_

"I do." Sam's got tears in his eyes despite his smile, and he thumbs one off of Jess's cheek before it can fall and ruin her makeup, winning a trebling laugh from her as she turns her cheek into his palm, and replies in kind, completing their vows.

"I do." Cas says the words as if he can shove all the significance of that promise into two syllables, as if he's trying to brand them into Dean's memory, some kind of perpetual assurance that he won't be alone again and they're in this together.

Then it's the moment of truth and Cas is standing in front of Dean waiting, by all appearances calm, but Dean knows how his brain works by now. Cas's tight grip and unwavering stare is hiding the fear that Dean's going to bolt at the last minute. This is the memory of a first kiss ending in locked doors, of Dean realizing he found his mate ending in a note left ignored on a kitchen table, of Cas waking up to an empty bed and having to convince himself Dean wouldn't leave his bag if he meant to run, of Dean practically dumping Cas and storming out after a fight, of an ill-advised attempt to ship him back to his family when they were supposed to move in with each other. Cas is terrified because Dean doesn't handle personal discovery well. He runs from it. Though Dean knows pretty much anyone in this room would willingly kneecap him if he tried to leave now, that's not why he stays.

_He_ made this choice. _He_ proposed. He may not be a big fan of the church wedding part of this, but _Cas_is an idiot for not remembering that Dean's the one who brought them here in the first place.

"I do."

It's the first time the constant photos being snapped of them isn't an annoyance; Castiel's smile blossoms, genuine and uninhibited, shaving off years of worry and loneliness and completely ruining his attempts to remain stoic. Dean wants to preserve that moment for its rarity and so he has pictorial evidence of the fact that Cas is, as Dean's staunchly maintained, a complete sap underneath his stony, at times violent, once unreadable exterior.

The rings can't be exchanged quickly enough after that, particularly not with Gabriel patting himself down looking for the one entrusted to him before producing it from a crumpled cocktail napkin in his pocket. The word 'kiss' is barely out of the minister's mouth before Dean has ahold of Cas, an arm at the small of his back and one around his shoulders, and he's off-balancing him into a kiss that has Cas clinging to steady himself as at abruptly being dipped, then giving as good as he gets.

If Dean is going to lay one on Cas for a frikkin' audience, he's damn sure going to do it right, thoroughly, and on his own terms. Screw stereotypes of timidity or submissiveness.

Someone once told Dean that a good kiss could spark sensation from ten thousand nerve endings straight into the portion of the brain that houses the soul, binding spirits together. Even then it was a strange mash of pheromones and emotions and science and sentiment, and it still is now. Cas believes it, though, and Dean's pretty sure he started to believe it himself six months back. Not about religion, but about _faith_. Cas talks about the soul like it's a fact, about love like it's a constant, about being mates like it's a gift, and somewhere along the line Dean stopped looking at any of that as quite so far-fetched. So maybe it's Alpha and Omega and mates, maybe it's oxytocin and dopamine and the limbic system, maybe it's just dumb luck, and maybe it's souls and miracles and the hand of God or whatever. Maybe it's all of that.

But even after seeing the horrors of the world first-hand Cas secretly believes in fairytales, and Dean knows those end in a kiss.

Or maybe that's how they begin.


End file.
